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+1 for eclipse putting you off Android development, it looks and feels like a home brewed effort of the seventies.
We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP
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Maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISP[^]is what ALL here, discussing LISP should read to gain a comon understaning ground AND understand LISP in the larg. i.e Autocad as a CAD systems was able to use LISP, and I (even as a Autocad novice) was able to code new CAD parameterised drawing elements. Not so bad for me 20 years ago. Josef
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Mike Hankey wrote: after about 2 days I think what the hell would I do with it?
That is what has stopped me so far, what can I do with it?
Sorry to hear your beagle is sick.
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JimmyRopes wrote: Sorry to hear your beagle is sick.
Thanks don't know yet whether on critical list but doesn't matter...sh*t happens!
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Mike Hankey wrote: sh*t happens
That is the nature of experimental development.
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JimmyRopes wrote: That is the nature of experimental development.
Yes it is. Over the years I've done a lot of R&D and when it works it's awesome but when it don't...
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In answer to the question, I don't programme with Lisp; I would need a very good reason to start, curiosity in this case would not by itself justify the investment of time and effort.
Whereas other languages such as Python are commercial, hobbyist, free and fun to learn, which is probably why they succeed.
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Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote: I don't programme with Lisp; I would need a very good reason to start
Me too. That is why I am asking if anyone uses it and for what.
Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote: curiosity in this case would not by itself justify the investment of time and effort.
Ditto
Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote: Whereas other languages such as Python are commercial, hobbyist, free and fun to learn, which is probably why they succeed.
I've thought about looking into Python but just haven't had the time.
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Does AutoCAD still use it as its scripting language? I know it used to but I haven't used it in over 20 years.
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Thanks for the information.
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In the 80s, I worked on an NLP parser (for a small subset of English) in Lisp at DEC's AI Technology center in Hudson, MA. Its purpose was to translate a natural language English query into input to drive XCON (at the time, the world's largest expert system). When I moved to XCON, I used OPS5 to write production rules. Lisp was deemed inefficient for that purpose because OPS5's pattern matching algoritm algorithm was much faster than evaluating a Lisp function.
I don't know where Lisp is used nowadays - apart from Emacs macros. 
/ravi
modified 1-Feb-14 23:14pm.
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NP. A cursory search revealed TASC[^] is hiring Lisp programmers.
/ravi
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Yes[^].
If I remember correctly, it was an early garbage collected language, and is functional, generating immutable data ... features which facilitate use on multiprocessor machines which just about everybody knows are becoming more prevalent today.
Never moon a werewolf.
- Harvey
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Thanks for the information.
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I do not use LISP, Clojure, Scheme or any of those variants. However, there is much to be gained by learning a different programming style than the imperative form that most of us are used to with C-like languages.
Functional programming is based on functions and variables. For any value x that you pass into function f(x), you will always get the same result. There are no side-effects, state, or mutable data.
The concept sounds foreign and useless at first. However, I recently wrote a library with Template-Meta Programming (TMP), and to my surprise, TMP in C++ is basically functional programming. I had to go about solving my problems in different ways.
When I completed the library, and returned to my normal programming tasks, I found that I approached my problem solving in a different way, even though I was no longer using a functional programming language.
One of the things that I learned to do was complete a complex task in a very elegant manner, with very little code when I was using functional programming constructs.
To know and not do, is not yet to know
http://www.codeofthedamned.com
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Paul Watt wrote: I found that I approached my problem solving in a different way, even though I was no longer using a functional programming language.
Interesting. I am interested in learning functional programming, but haven't had the time yet.
I am currently working on developing agents to do robotic trading on the Foreign Exchange market. Do you think functional programming will have relevance in market analysis?
Paul Watt wrote: One of the things that I learned to do was complete a complex task in a very elegant manner, with very little code when I was using functional programming constructs.
Very interesting. Can you be coaxed into an article explaining how to implement functional programming constructs in non-functional languages?
Thanks for the insight.
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JimmyRopes wrote: Do you think functional programming will have relevance in market analysis?
I am sure that there is some place for it, but I do not have enough knowledge of ForEx or the market itself to make a suggestion. My instinct tells me that any of the math equations or collection of similar constructs is a good place to start.
JimmyRopes wrote: Very interesting. Can you be coaxed into an article explaining how to implement functional programming constructs in non-functional languages?
Yes, however what I plan on doing is building up a TMP-based solution on my blog. The blog is also fed into CodeProject so you will be able to follow it as I build up the solution. I wrote an initial entry on TMP here: Template Meta-Programming[^].
The short answer, is that you think of everything like a function in math. Zero or more inputs are passed in, and only one result at most is returned. If you pass in that same set of inputs to the same function, you will get the exact same results every time. This is very valuable when you want to prove that something is working properly because there is only one possible answer for any set of inputs. Contrast this with the potential of programming with global variables, intermediate state, and potential side-effects.
It does take some practice to get used to solving problems this way. In the end, it becomes another tool in your belt to solve problems. If you keep your mind open, programming in other languages even just casually, can help you expand your approach to solving problems. The key is to not try and use every language like it is C++, or whatever your programming language of choice happens to be.
I am surprised how interested programmers have become with TMP recently. The TMP blog entry I gave you the link to has been one of my more popular entries. So, once I am done building up the solution through the series of blog entries, I could imagine writing a summary article.
To know and not do, is not yet to know
http://www.codeofthedamned.com
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Paul Watt wrote: My instinct tells me that any of the math equations or collection of similar constructs is a good place to start.
Yes there are a lot of math equations. In fact, all of the analysis are mathematical interpretations of the market data. I will look into the implication of a functional language to do the calculations.
I will have a look at your blog to try to understand TMP to see if it has utility in any of the systems I am building.
Thanks for the information.
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I used it for a while years ago at college and Uni. Horrible language in my opinion that seemed pretty pointless. Other languages seem to do list processing quite well these days now anyway. LISP was incredibly hard to read.
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Mike Diack wrote: Other languages seem to do list processing quite well these days now anyway.
That is what I was thinking that it had it's day in the mid 20th century. I just always hear mention of it while reading what some of the pioneers of computer science say so I wondered if it was still relevant.
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Using LISP currently... First it is not crazy efficient, and is usually interpreted.
But it was the key for me learning OOP at the university in the late 80s.
The concept of a function was such that you could subclass your class, and then
declare EITHER (before, after, instead of) function, which simply determined when it
would execute your code, relative to the original code.
CDR = Contents of Destination Register
CADR = Contents of Address Register
LISP = Lots of Incessant Stupid Parenthesis
Wow, you brought a bunch of memories back from a LONG time ago.
EMACS uses LISP for macros/extensions. So, one way to learn LISP in a functional way, would be to learn to write extensions for the editor (or read a bunch of them).
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