On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 11:18 PM, rjf<fate...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Look, I agree that it would be a nice language feature. Even the C++
>> preprocessor doesn't have enough macro expansion for my liking, and C+
>> + is one of the languages used in Sage. This is definitely a nice
>> feature in Lisp. But it isn't going to be much of a draw card given
>> the other decisively off putting features of Lisp like difficult to
>> use packages and modules and the lack of a decent compiler and the
>> fact that there is very little community around it.
>
> Well, I don't know about there being no "decent compiler"; Sage has
> not
> chosen Lisps based on technical merit, and may have encountered ones
> without decent compilers.
Of course the Sage project did chose Lisps based on technical merit.
You didn't address the vastly more important criticism above about community.
>> It would be a much more productive use of time to implement macros in
>> Python. Of course that is being done. There's a Google summer of code
>> project for it.
>
>
> I wonder what it is about mathematicians that makes them think it
> is a good idea to depend on high school students for production code.
Google Summer of Code is not for high school students -- the Google
"Highly Open Participant Contest" is for high school students. The
Google Summer of Code is for any college student of any level, from
freshman undergrad to 8th year Ph.D. student.
That said, I like high school students (and freshman undergrads too),
and know they are capable of amazing work.
>
>>
>>
>>
>> > If this kind of thing is not possible with Python, that is, in my
>> > view, unfortunate.
>>
>> Well, macros in the sense that you mean it are not. The other stuff
>> is, along with a hell of a lot that lisp can't easily do, due to the
>> overwhelming number of freely available modules you can just download
>> for python.
>
> Ah, I think I agree with you on the freely available modules in
> Python.
> The surprising thing is that many? all? of those Python modules can be
> downloaded
> into Lisp, too. In fact, I first tried loading gmp into lisp by
> loading gmpy.
> It worked, but I found it limiting.
You seem to be saying that any (?) Python library works from Lisp.
That doesn't make any sense. Huh?
>> Anyhow, thanks for the link, but I'm not presently interested in Lisp
>> or other language design features.
>
> You are welcome. I'm generally trying to add some light into the Sage
> discussion;
> it only descends to snarkiness because I am inclined to sarcasm and
> don't
> manage to edit it all out.
If sage-devel were moderated (and personally I think it should be, but
others didsagree), I would not post your messages. I would greatly
prefer that "sarcastic snarky" posts be to sage-flame, which is the
appropriate place for sage-related posts that are full of half truths,
insuations, insults, sarcasm, swearing, etc.:
http://groups.google.com/group/sage-flame
-- William
--
William Stein
Associate Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to
sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel
URLs: http://www.sagemath.org
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
