[Sussex] Code-writing methods

[Nic James Ferrier]

Geoff Teale <gteale at cmedresearch.com> writes:

> Indeed I look on the LISP family of languages as being so ahead of their time 
> that the ideas contained in them are only *now* becoming fashionable.  
> Python, Ruby and Javascript are all moving into the field of metaprogramming 
> slowly.

It's interesting that so many recent languages are aping LISP's idea
that objects have type but variables do not. Research over the last
10-15 years has been more focused on making static typing usable; eg:
ML, Haskell, et al.

Just recently we've seen ideas from those languages influence the C
descendants (C# and Java) though there are clear limits to that.


I love LISP (actually, I love Scheme) but it will never be statically
typed. I know it *could* be but it would always involve breaking the
absolutely elemental nature of LISP.

The first language to combine the simplicity and flexibility of
control structures that LISP has, with the ability to type check code
statically that purely functional languages have, will be a massive
winner. I'd love to be clever enough to invent such a thing but I
think it will actually take luck. Just as LISPs development was a lot
about luck.


To all those people who haven't tried LISP or Scheme I urge you to
download and play with Guile. Scheme is probably the most interesting
language that is easy to learn with really thought provoking and
style changing concepts like continuations.

Hackers love it.

-- 
Nic Ferrier
http://www.tapsellferrier.co.uk   for all your tapsell ferrier needs