Koch figures
in [Lisp]
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From: Joe Marshall on 28 Sep 2005 18:17 A.L. <lewando_won_(a)kalabambuko.com> writes: > And below is in Java. Could somebody, using both examples, explain why > "Lisp is better"?... This example is too small to show off the strengths of Lisp.
From: Emre Sevinc on 28 Sep 2005 19:03 Joe Marshall <jmarshall(a)alum.mit.edu> writes: > A.L. <lewando_won_(a)kalabambuko.com> writes: > >> And below is in Java. Could somebody, using both examples, explain why >> "Lisp is better"?... > > This example is too small to show off the strengths of Lisp. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I think that is a very important sentence. Trying to find the "right-sized" example is very difficult indeed unless you know your audience's background very well. Pascal Costanza mentions the same thing, "to understand the power you need something big", maybe that's the reason why he, instead of tackling toy problems, dived into CL headlong and developed AspectL, ContextL, etc. using CLOS, MOP, etc. As a very experienced Java programmer he says he preferred CL. Another example: SWCLOS http://iswc2004.semanticweb.org/demos/32/ http://international-lisp-conference.org/2005/tutorials.html#swclos_semantic_web_processing_in_clos What does the above example mean to a Java programmer? To a C# programmer? What about PHP programmers? Do PHP programmers talk about OWL and logical reasoning nowadays? Is MetaObject Protocol "simply something like reflection in Java/C#"? How can you make people understand? A question: Can you impress a C, C++, Java, Perl, etc. programmer by saying: "Imagine that we have Lisp and no OO functionality, how can we put OO in it by simply using closures, lambdas, etc.? How could you do it for your language?" Is this a right-sized example? For experienced other-language programmers intermediate level examples are not very impressive. For beginners complex examples simply do not mean much. The spectrum is wide and deep and this situation feeds lots of hot (and generally not very meaningful) debate and trolls. I wonder if other comp.lang.* groups receive so many posts titled "Why *?" :) -- Emre Sevinc eMBA Software Developer Actively engaged in: http:www.bilgi.edu.tr http://ileriseviye.org http://www.bilgi.edu.tr http://fazlamesai.net Cognitive Science Student http://cazci.com http://www.cogsci.boun.edu.tr
From: Emre Sevinc on 28 Sep 2005 19:08 Emre Sevinc <emres(a)bilgi.edu.tr> writes: > Joe Marshall <jmarshall(a)alum.mit.edu> writes: > >> A.L. <lewando_won_(a)kalabambuko.com> writes: >> >>> And below is in Java. Could somebody, using both examples, explain why >>> "Lisp is better"?... >> >> This example is too small to show off the strengths of Lisp. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > I think that is a very important sentence. > > Trying to find the "right-sized" example is very difficult > indeed unless you know your audience's background very well. > > Pascal Costanza mentions the same thing, "to understand the > power you need something big", maybe that's the > reason why he, instead of tackling toy problems, dived into > CL headlong and developed AspectL, ContextL, etc. using > CLOS, MOP, etc. As a very experienced Java programmer he says > he preferred CL. > > Another example: SWCLOS > > http://iswc2004.semanticweb.org/demos/32/ > > http://international-lisp-conference.org/2005/tutorials.html > > What does the above example mean to a Java programmer? > To a C# programmer? What about PHP programmers? Do PHP > programmers talk about OWL and logical reasoning nowadays? > Is MetaObject Protocol "simply something like reflection in > Java/C#"? How can you make people understand? Another example: Can you impress people by saying that CL lets you do things like that: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/moore/acl2/ What kind of programmers would be impressed? Could you impress database programmers? GUI designers? PHP programmers? Analysts? Ruby programmers? How would experienced C or C++ programmers react? Sun Microsystems and AMD seems to be impressed (or aren't they? ;-) > A question: Can you impress a C, C++, Java, Perl, etc. > programmer by saying: "Imagine that we have Lisp and > no OO functionality, how can we put OO in it by > simply using closures, lambdas, etc.? How could > you do it for your language?" Is this a right-sized > example? > > For experienced other-language programmers intermediate level > examples are not very impressive. For beginners complex > examples simply do not mean much. The spectrum is wide and > deep and this situation feeds lots of hot (and generally > not very meaningful) debate and trolls. > > I wonder if other comp.lang.* groups receive so many > posts titled "Why *?" :) -- Emre Sevinc eMBA Software Developer Actively engaged in: http:www.bilgi.edu.tr http://ileriseviye.org http://www.bilgi.edu.tr http://fazlamesai.net Cognitive Science Student http://cazci.com http://www.cogsci.boun.edu.tr
From: LuisGLopez on 28 Sep 2005 20:19 Hi!!! Thank *you*, Raph!!! :-) Raph ha escrito: > That's *not* the point. The point is that the above code ONLY draws the > snowflake Koch curve. Luis specifically said "Really... I just wanted > to draw the Koch curve, but then realize that, with the *same* code I > made, I could draw *any* koch figure of my choice!" Exactly. And I can't exagerate on this. I had in mind only to achieve the Koch curve. I only thought as a possible *future* *extension* the ability to draw the famous kornflake. But then... I just *saw* that the original code could achieve both with no changes... and then more! It was very exciting. For a moment, I felt more like a 'discoverer' than a programmer (well, in fact, I'm not a programmer either; just a hobbist. But I love this). And I sincerely feel that this was posible due to the 'lisp way of thinking'. I mean... lisp is making me think in a different way, and code in a different way. I used to code in java a lot, and I'm sure I would never get such an elegant and general solution to this problem. So I would say that, at least in my case, lisp is better not just for its own strenght (which I'm barely beginning to touch), but for the way it's making me think about algorithms. Don't get me wrong either: I still like java, but...men: lisp is *another* thing... ;) > If we're going to do language trolling, let's at least do it with the > same example problem. LOL! :) Thank you!!!! Luis.
From: Frank Buss on 29 Sep 2005 06:10
LuisGLopez wrote: > Again with a simple code ;) > > It's about plotting Koch figures (curve, snowflake... and more!). > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_curve). > > I did a search in c.l.l., but didn't find anything. Maybe too simple? You didn't search for the right words: http://groups.google.de/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_thread/thread/05631fa93379bca8/248b67466ca2aa7d The snowflake can be created like this: (postscript-l-system '(("F"."F+F--F+F")) "F--F--F" 60 6) Converted to PDF: http://www.frank-buss.de/tmp/koch.pdf -- Frank Bu?, fb(a)frank-buss.de http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de |