From: Nikolai Weibull <ruby-talk@...>
Date: 2003-10-10T02:56:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Extension Language for a Text Editor

* Seth Kurtzberg <seth@cql.com> [Oct, 09 2003 09:10]:
> Well, for one thing, doing it in lisp would be reinventing the wheel, as
> emacs has been around for ages.
Yes, this is true, and one of the strongest points for not going down
that road.
> One main advantage that I see to ruby is that one could modify existing
> code and add new code much more easily if the modifier doesn't have a
> lisp background.  lisp code is horribly unreadable.
This is, however, only an opinion, not a truth.  Lisp code may be
unreadable to you, and many who have never gotten used to it.  But
there's no point in saying that it would be easier to modify others
code, simply because it wasn't written in Lisp.  With Lisp you get 40
years of coding standards build-up.  I bet that people able to speak
Lisp without starting to lisp (hahaha, so funny) are very able to modify
other peoples code.  Probably even more so than for many other
languages, as Lisp is, after all, very clean and simple in many
respects.  I'm guessing that everyone hates Lisp because of Common Lisp.
Common Lisp is large and hard to grasp, whereas there are many
alternatives that are small and simple to comprehend.
> If you do want to use a functional language Haskell is a much better
> choice, and would in fact be interesting in this context.
Yes, in fact Haskell would be great as I am studying at Gothenburg
University, which is one of the two or three major hubs of Haskell
research and development.  I do, however, feel that Haskell is to
complex and, as you should also feel (as a Ruby user), to restrictive.
Typing is one of its strong selling points, and I'm not a fan of typing.
	nikolai

--
::: name: Nikolai Weibull    :: aliases: pcp / lone-star / aka :::
::: born: Chicago, IL USA    :: loc atm: Gothenburg, Sweden    :::
::: page: www.pcppopper.org  :: fun atm: gf,lps,ruby,lisp,war3 :::
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}