Choosing a programming language as a competitive tool

[Douglas Alan]

Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> writes:

> But, that still doesn't teach you how to use lisp.  If you approach
> it as a procedural language, you won't get anywhere.

Why not?  Lisp *is* a procedural language.

> For all its bizarre syntax,, and executable line noise appearance,
> perl really is very similar to C, Pascal, Fortran, Python, etc.

That's not true -- no one would ever even think of teaching Computer
Science in Perl, while schools routinely do teach it in Lisp, C, and
Pascal.  Python would also be a good language for teaching Computer
Science.  (Not as good a language as Scheme, though, which is a
dialect of Lisp.)

> Lisp is a different way of doing things entirely.

Not true.  Python is practically a dialect of Lisp, but with a
different syntax.  Lisp *is* very different from Perl, C, Pascal, or
Fortran, though.

|>oug