Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd
From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: The powerlessness of Lisp
Message-ID: <16060:Mar2515:41:5691@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 25 Mar 91 15:41:56 GMT
References: <1991Mar20.192606.29608@linus.mitre.org> <4637:Mar2102:11:2991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <1991Mar21.123512.22876@daffy.cs.wisc.edu>
Organization: IR
Lines: 25

In article <1991Mar21.123512.22876@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> quale@khan.cs.wisc.edu (Douglas E. Quale) writes:
> In article <4637:Mar2102:11:2991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
> >typechecking) and pointers into memory. You can do things with memory in
> >C that you CANNOT even express in Lisp. To return to the original point,
> Examples, please.

p + i, as I already pointed out. You can find higher-level applications
(e.g., byte-copying into a character buffer, which can then be written
portably to disk and read back later) for yourself.

Other points: GNU Emacs *is* written in C, with only a small amount of
``helper'' code to implement dynamic typing. Yes, this *does* provide
all the perceived advantages of a dynamically typed language like Lisp,
and in this case makes most of the resulting program look like Lisp. The
total cost is that bit of helper code.

Doug, you have made nothing of yourself in this newsgroup but a nuisance
for at least the last few months. I post a working compose() in C, for
example, and you have to insist in five separate articles that it
doesn't work when nested. You challenge references rather than spending
a few minutes to educate yourself; you repeatedly bring up dead issues
and ignore arguments and logic that you don't like; most importantly,
you apparently don't *want* to contribute. Why do you post at all?

---Dan