Xref: utzoo comp.lang.lisp:2428 comp.lang.prolog:2160 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!cambridge.apple.com!alms From: alms@cambridge.apple.com (Andrew L. M. Shalit) Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.prolog Subject: Re: Lisp and Prolog Style Message-ID: Date: 21 Nov 89 23:27:00 GMT References: <8911211401.aa25148@PARIS.ICS.UCI.EDU> Sender: news@cambridge.apple.com Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cambridge, MA Lines: 23 In-reply-to: Schwamb@ics.UCI.EDU's message of 21 Nov 89 22:04:12 GMT In article <8911211401.aa25148@PARIS.ICS.UCI.EDU> Schwamb@ics.UCI.EDU ("Karl B. Schwamb") writes: >> Can anyone suggest good comprehensive style guides for >> Common Lisp (or older versions of Lisp)... Good style in Common Lisp (which is lexically scoped) may be very different from good style for older dialects of Lisp. I think this is part of the reason that Lisp still has a reputation for being slow. Too many people program in Common Lisp as if it were Franz Lisp or Interlisp (e.g. they use lots of dynamic binding, call EVAL all over the place, etc). On a related note, a couple of years ago I saw a syllabus (sp?) for an "ai" course at Harvard. The teacher gave out a purported Lisp style guide. The only gem I remember was "for small operations, use macros instead of functions". I guess the teacher wanted them inline for speed, and wasn't considering all the problems associated with macros. The basic use of Lisp throughout the course seemed to be "cons up symbols and put them on the plists of other symbols. The symbols represent words with semantics, and that's how you do natural language." And this was two years ago. Sigh. . . -andrew