I know that Lisp is famous for coding AI, is that true? If that is true, do anyone of you use it or know it? Furthermore, if you code in it or know it, what do you think about it? I ''ve heard people say that once you know Lisp you will not want to code in other language. Is this true.

Lisp is famous for AI development -> but mostly on the natural language, partly because of its age and numerous string processing abilites. I have used it and it is quite fun (as long as you like parantheses : )

I personally prefer lisp to any other language -> the functionality is unmatched in my experience (with macros and such) and can be about as fast as traditional languages when compiled and not interpreted (though interpreted speed is not bad).

Even if you don''t end up liking lisp it is a good language to learn since because of its recursive nature it really allows you to think about programming in a whole new way -> lisp _will_ change your coding style.

- mongrelprogrammer

Note: These are my _opinions_ and if you wish to say lisp sucks or whatever that is fine just don''t try to argue with me (you will not convice me and I will just ignore you : )

Lisp is commonly used in AI because some tasks are so much easier and shorter to code in it when compared to procedural languages like C++. The canonical example is some sort of state-space search like A*, which might take 90% fewer lines in Lisp than C++. I''ve never seen Lisp run as fast as C++, but that''s not to say it''s impossible.

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Lisp is pretty famous for being used in the game Abuse by the now-dead crack dot com. It''s been released into the public domain, so you can download it and do whatever you like with it (download it here: www.abuse2.com)

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Lisp is nice as a completely different approach to programming than standard procedural languages. I''m of the opinion that if you can code a major application in Lisp, then you can pretty much code anything.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Lisp is nice as a completely different approach to programming than standard procedural languages. I''m of the opinion that if you can code a major application in Lisp, then you can pretty much code anything.

Actually there''s far more in the world of programming than imperative languages. Imperative languages dominate, but LISP is only one of many languages that follow different paradigm. LISP is not even a pure functional language (although this is not a consensual opinion).

Learning "strange" languages may not be immediately useful, but it helps to broaden your view on programming... LISP is good for this, as is FORTH. Learning a pure functional language like Haskell might be interesting. I like to learn many languages, even more when they present a completely new perspective on the trade. Learning 45 similar (imperative) languages might not be so useful...

quote: Original post by ktulu
Learning 45 similar (imperative) languages might not be so useful...

That''s the thing really, once you know one, you can pick up a new one in 5 minutes. But we learned Haskell at uni, and it took some time to master it. It was great fun, really


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quote: Original post by Dean Harding
That''s the thing really, once you know one, you can pick up a new one in 5 minutes. But we learned Haskell at uni, and it took some time to master it. It was great fun, really

And that''s why many people who know at most 2 or 3 languages get to say "all programming languages are the same". This type of comment is so deep a misconception that I get annoyed every time I hear it. To these people I say: "try to learn LISP, FORTH, try to learn Haskell. Try to write a single ''Hello, world!'' in APL, INTERCAL or bf"

BTW, If you really want to blow your mind, try INTERCAL. Just remember the sign displayed at the entrance: "Abandon all sanity, ye who enter here"

No, no, no, I mean all imperative languages are pretty much the same, once you know C, you can program Java, C++, Pascal, basic, blah, blah, blah.

I was saying how good it is to learn a language like Haskell!

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quote: Original post by Dean Harding
No, no, no, I mean all imperative languages are pretty much the same, once you know C, you can program Java, C++, Pascal, basic, blah, blah, blah.

I was saying how good it is to learn a language like Haskell!

Yes, I got that

I was just ranting against people that say "all languages are the same". And it seems like that because the better-known languages nowadays are imperative.


[edited by - ktulu on April 26, 2002 10:27:41 PM]