Why don't people like lisp?

[Bengt Richter]

On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 01:25:33 +0200, Michael Walter <cm at leetspeak.org> wrote:

>larry wrote:
>> Here's a more realistic example that illustrates exactly the opposite
>> point. Take the task of finding the sum of the square of a bunch of
>> numbers.
>> Do people really think to themselves when they do this task:
>> Umm first make a variable called sum 
>> then set that variable sum to zero.
>> Then get the next number in the list,
>> square it, 
>> add it to the old value of sum, 
>> store the resulting value into sum,
>> then get the next variable,etc....
>> 
>> No they they think: sum up the square of a bunch of numbers.
>> This  has an almost direct translation to the lisp style:
>> (apply '+ (mapcar #'(lambda(x)(* x x)) numlist)).
>Well..
>   sum (map (\x -> x ** 2) [1..10])
>in Haskell, or
>   sum (map ((lambda x: x ** 2), range(1,11)))

Too much line noise ;-)

    sum([x*x for x in range(1,11)])

>in Python. But not really sure what point you're trying to make, oh well :)

Regards,
Bengt Richter