tk@moss.ATT.COM (02/19/88)
In article <206@piring.cwi.nl> varol@cwi.nl (Varol Akman) writes: >In article <12375473238.17.BEEBE@SCIENCE.UTAH.EDU> Beebe@SCIENCE (Nelson H.F. Beebe) writes: >>The latest issue of SIGPLAN Notices, Vol. 23, No. 2, Feb 88, >>carries a very interesting article >> >> Howard Trickey, ``C++ versus Lisp: A Case Study'' >> >>which is worth reading by both C++ and Lisp devotees. >>------- > >OK, go ahead and flame me but I'll say it anyway: > >It boggles my mind when people write articles like this. >I mean, will some one tell me what do C++ and Lisp share >other than being programming languages. > >Comparing the incomparables? > >Apples vs. oranges? > >Or as someone once said ''a childish disorder'' ? What else need they share? Trickey's paper is a personal productivity study comparing the utility of two good programming languages, as well as the respective environments and tools that support them. Disciples of either C++ or Lisp or any other language will usually claim some productivity advantage of their favorite...so why not compare them as directly (both objectively and subjectively, just as Trickey did) as possible? In case it isn't obvious, I agree that the paper is worth reading.
colinm@runx.ips.oz (Colin McCormack) (02/26/88)
In article <206@piring.cwi.nl> varol@cwi.nl (Varol Akman) writes: >...... >I mean, will some one tell me what do C++ and Lisp share >other than being programming languages. >...... There was an paper a few years ago which demonstrated that lisp and algol are similar in some respects at a higher level than the syntactic (being functional programming languages for example). I have always thought that this removed the "lots of irritating single parentheses" criticism some people feel compelled to level at lisp. What applied to lisp 1.5 and algol probably extends to common lisp and C++, and raises some interesting questions about the degree to which the standard syntax employed by lisp impacts upon lisp's utility and perhaps lisp programmer productivity. To this extent I can see value in the paper by Trickey which provoked varol to ask the above question. If anybody doesn't have the reference, I'll perform another search for it through my self ordering filing system. Colin. Internet: colinm@runx.ips.oz.au UUCP: uunet!runx.ips.oz.au!colinm