Re: How to improve the readability of (any) LISP or any highlevel functional language to the level of FORTH ?

[Tim Harig]

On 2011-01-04, D Herring <dherring@at.tentpost.dot.com> wrote:
>> On Jan 3, 6:05 pm, Tim Harig<user...@ilthio.net>  wrote:
>>> What hurts the LISP community far more is the zealotry of its members,
>>> their insistance that LISP is the *only* tool for *every* job, and their
>>> agressiveness in trying to push it off on to everybody else -- whether
>>> everybody else happens want it or not.  Whether this is indicitive
>>> of the entire community or simply the result of those most apparent,
>>> I cannot say; but, it leads to the overall impression that the LISP
>>> community is narrowminded and neophobic.  Who would want to be part of
>>> such a community?
>
> Like the dark days of apple, bsd, and linux, there can be some bizarre 
> fanboyism in the lisp community.  Geeks are always technical but often 
> not personable.

1. You imply that the worst of the zealotry for Apple, BSD, and Linux is
        over.  When is it going to be over for LISP?

2. While I would agree that the listed groups have zealots among their
        ranks; but, in my experience, most of them have resigned to the
        fact that they often have to work with other systems.  I would
        suspect that most of their members are at least as knowledgable
        about using Windows as most dedicated Windows users.  Most of
        them, when push comes to shove, will even admit that there
        are things which they admire about other operating systems,
        including Windows.

        LISP users on the other hand, never seem to be able to let
        go of LISP when the situation requires it.  To be fair, most
        newcomers to any given language will tend to let the idioms
        from their previous language bleed into the new language.
        This is an familiarity issue and most will gradually assimilate
        into the mainstream as their knowledge and experience with the
        language grows.  Ultimately their knowledge and experience in
        both langauges improves their overall abilities no matter what
        language they may happen to be using.  LISP users never seem
        to do that.  They seem to be unable, or unwilling, to learn
        anything new.