[lbo-talk] Another computer great passes: John McCarthy RIP

[Fernando Cassia]

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 00:38, <brandelune at gmail.com> wrote:


> Why is that more "pure genius" than "code is data" ?

because it can quickly degenerate into difficult to understand code (by
programmers other than the one who created it)?

Lisp "hard to read"
http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=lisp+difficult+to+read#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=lisp+%22hard+to+read%22&pbx=1&oq=lisp+%22hard+to+read%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=18003l20820l2l21314l13l13l0l0l0l11l438l4043l2-6.5.2l13l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=f10181c958c90d45&biw=1024&bih=537

1.5 million results

NetRexx "Hard to read"
http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=lisp+difficult+to+read#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=netrexx+%22hard+to+read%22&pbx=1&oq=netrexx+%22hard+to+read%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=18753l19071l4l19490l3l3l0l0l0l2l455l755l3-1.1l2l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=f10181c958c90d45&biw=1024&bih=537

430 results.

I rest my case.

But I digress... some people love Perl, a language designed by Klingons

FC

-- 
"The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers."
Richard Hamming - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_code