newLISP Fan Club

Quote from: "cormullion"The discussion over at news.groups quickly lost me, but I was interested by your (Benjamin/dekuduplex) comment here:

Quote[...] I had still been thinking about whether to

continue with this RFC because of inconsistencies in statements by the

creator of newLISP in admitting whether a bug (now fixed) really was a

bug.  When I proposed the first RFC, this issue had not yet existed.

Such inconsistencies can possibly change the value of the programming

language to USENET in my opinion.  If the creator of a programming

language says that a bug is not really a bug, and then turns around

and fixes the "bug," is that creator trustworthy?

You seem to be saying here that you don't or didn't think there should be a comp.lang.lisp.newlisp group because Lutz is either untrustworthy or can sometimes change his mind? This I don't understand at all.



I'll think I'll stick to my cloisters...

Quote from: "Lutz"In the newLISP-GS Java front-end the bottom monitor is only a minimal terminal implementation in a Java Swing text area. Only designed for simple one-liners and not designed to be as comfortable as a shell window (which on Mac OS X and other Unix also does tab-expansion to built-in functions).

Quote from: "Pascal J. Bourguignon"There must be  a fatal flaw in this system, if you have to tag your

multiline expressions with an horror such as [cmd][/cmd].



The algorithms to read expressions, whatever the number of lines, have

been know and implemented in Lisp for 50 years.  Perhaps you should

try a Lisp that includes the teachings of history?

Quote from: "Lutz"The problem with [cmd][/cmd] tags in the newLISP-GS Java front-end has been fixed. Download a new guiserver.jar from:



http://www.newlisp.org/downloads/development/guiserver.jar">http://www.newlisp.org/downloads/develo ... server.jar">http://www.newlisp.org/downloads/development/guiserver.jar



and install on Win32 as: $PROGRAMFILES/newlisp/guiserver.jar



or install on Mac OS X and other Unix as: /usr/share/newlisp/guiserver.jar

Quote from: "DekuDekuplex on comp.lang.lisp hypothetically""Yes, you're right, it was a flaw in this system, and although Lutz first said that it wasn't a bug, he then changed his mind and fixed it."

Quote from: "Bourguignon on comp.lang.lisp hypothetically""Well, it's good that it was fixed, but why did he change his mind?  Why don't you avoid a language where the designer first argues that a bug isn't a bug and then changes his mind and says that it is indeed a bug, and try a Lisp that includes the teachings of history?"

Quote from: "DekuDekuplex on comp.lang.lisp hypothetically""No, you're wrong, there never was any fatal flaw in this system in the first place, as Lutz has already explained, but the problem has been fixed."

Quote from: "Bourguignon on comp.lang.lisp hypothetically""Well, if there never was any flaw to begin with, then why was it fixed?  Either there wasn't a bug, in which case nothing needed to have been fixed in the first place, or there was one, in which case there was a logical inconsistency involved.  As I said, the algorithms to read expressions, whatever the number of lines, have been know and implemented in Lisp for 50 years.  Why don't you avoid this kind of problem and try a Lisp that includes the teachings of history?"

Quote from: "Benjamin L. Russell in comp.lang.lisp"Here are some observations of both newLISP and Clojure, based upon

features listed on their sites, together with some questions on

Clojure:



1.  newLISP comes with a DrScheme-style GUI-based IDE complete with

definitions and interactions panels, whereas apparently Clojure does

not.  Does Clojure have a superior editing environment?



2.  Clojure does not have first-class continuations.  Unfortunately, I

discovered recently that neither does newLISP.  I wish to study

continuations in PLAI (see

http://www.cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Books/ProgLangs/2007-04-26/">http://www.cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publication ... 007-04-26/">http://www.cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Books/ProgLangs/2007-04-26/),

as well as to continue studying SICP (see

http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/">http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/).  Is this feasible using Clojure?



3.  newLISP has ORO (One Reference Only) automatic memory management

(see http://www.newlisp.org/MemoryManagement.html">http://www.newlisp.org/MemoryManagement.html), in which "Memory

is not marked or reference-counted. Instead, a decision whether to

delete a newly created memory object is made right after the memory

object is created."  Does Clojure have a superior garbage collection

mechanism?



4.  I wish to study tail call optimization in SICP.  Since Clojure

"uses the Java calling conventions, it cannot, and does not, make

[...] tail call optimization guarantees" (see

http://clojure.org/functional_programming">http://clojure.org/functional_programming, under "Recursive Looping").

I am not sure about newLISP in this regard (the newLISP Manual and

Reference (see http://www.newlisp.org/downloads/manual_frame.html">http://www.newlisp.org/downloads/manual_frame.html))

does not discuss tail call optimization.  Is there a way to study tail

call optimization, as discussed in SICP, using Clojure?



5.  Since I live in Japan, where the dominant language is Japanese, I

wish to be able to use Japanese characters in my programs, thus

necessitating Unicode support.  newLISP supports Unicode (see "newLISP

- Features" at http://www.newlisp.org/index.cgi?Features">http://www.newlisp.org/index.cgi?Features, under

"International").  I could not find any references to Unicode support

for Clojure.  Does Clojure support Unicode?

Quote from: "Tamas K Papp on comp.lang.lisp"On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:07:10 +0900, Benjamin L. Russell wrote:

> There seems to be more discussion of Clojure than newLISP on USENET

> these days, even though both are minor Lisp dialects with similar goals,



Similar goals?  The creators of Clojure constructed a decent* language,

the same cannot be said of newLisp.



(* I don't want to get into a CL vs Clojure debate here.  Arguing

about the relative merits of vanilla and chocolate ice cream is

pointless when the third alternative is batshit).



[...]



> programmers.  Alternatively, perhaps Clojure has certain advantages over

> newLISP that I am unaware of.



Eg closures?  Lexical scope?

Quote from: "Kazimir Majorinc on comp.lang.lisp"On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:24:48 +0100,



namekuseijin <namekusei> wrote:

> newLisp is yet another scripting language with lots of wrappers around

> common programming APIs.  Clojure is a full-fledged language and

> implementation, also benefiting from Java frameworks and tools.



> newLisp doesn't even have lexical scope, thus their list of features

> is more interested in showing immediate practical stuff, like IDEs and

> library-support, that will cater to pragmatic programmers but won't

> impress folks interested in new language design ideas.  Besides, I

> don't like the authoritative tone in the choice of name.



I have to disagree with that. I started using Newlisp after I

used other Lisp dialects few years, mostly because of few

code=data related features not availiable in other languages:



* Unrestricted eval that works for local and global variables and

   doesn't require addional running time.



   (In almost all Lisp implementation, code containing eval is many

   times (up to 1500+ times) slower than same code out of eval)



* Dynamic scope. Because of that, in Newlisp one can define

   functions equally powerful as macros - for example, I defined

   function IF - standard example why one need macros in some

   Lisp dialects.



   Newlisp supports lexical scope in the form of contexts.



* Newlisp macros are actually fexprs, i.e. fexprs are not expanded

   during compile time, but evaluated during during runtime. Fexprs

   are simpler, and slower in normal code, but faster if used inside

   of eval (macroexpansion inside of eval is very slow).



   Additionally, Newlisp macros are the first class citizens, so

   one can use these as values, apply or map during runtime.



   Macros can be anonymous.



* Functions and macros evaluate to their own definitions,

   so one can not only use, apply and map functions (and macros)

   during runtime, but he can also analyze and mutate functions

   (and macros) during runtime.



These are not just any improvements, but improvements in

metaprogramming, code=data paradigm, and that paradigm is

specificity of Lisp. These features are not emphasized in

the introductory materials, but it is decision of the author

to present the language primarily as simple and practical,

suitable and interesting for wide number of programmers.

The majority of potential users are not primarily interested

in fexpr vs macros issue, but in practical side.



There are many other innovations, like FOOP - functional

object oriented programming, unification with occur check,

regular expressions, basic statistical functions ...



I agree that name is not the most fortunate, but it is not

that important. Generally, author of Newlisp is very helpful

person, and frequently accept requests for features.

Quote from: "Tamas K Papp on comp.lang.lisp"On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:54:57 +0100, Kazimir Majorinc wrote:

> I have to disagree with that. I started using Newlisp after I used other

> Lisp dialects few years, mostly because of few code=data related

> features not availiable in other languages:



> * Unrestricted eval that works for local and global variables and

>    doesn't require addional running time.



>    (In almost all Lisp implementation, code containing eval is many

>    times (up to 1500+ times) slower than same code out of eval)



That may be because newLisp is interpreted and everything must be slow

as hell.  I doubt that eval is slower in modern CL implementations

compared to newLisp, it is just that compiled code is so much faster

than the latter.



Next time you need to go somewhere, just crawl on your belly.  That

way you will not lose a lot of speed when you have to stop at a

traffic light.



> [ ... other similarly idiotic statements snipped ... ]



> These are not just any improvements, but improvements in

> metaprogramming, code=data paradigm, and that paradigm is specificity of

> Lisp. These features are not emphasized in the introductory materials,



Whenever you don't have a clue, just say the magic word "paradigm",

possibly multiple times.  newLisp paradigmatically integrates the

code-data meta-paradigm paradigmatic sub-paradigm paradigm, etc.



> but it is decision of the author to present the language primarily as

> simple and practical, suitable and interesting for wide number of

> programmers. The majority of potential users are not primarily

> interested in fexpr vs macros issue, but in practical side.



The author(s) of newLisp obviously didn't have a clue about language

design, and could not implement a compiler, closures, and a zillion

other things.  Trying to sell these as a "features" is rather weak.



I hope that you realize that your attempts to push newLisp are rather

pathetic.

Quote from: "Raffael Cavallaro on comp.lang.lisp"On Mar 26, 7:48 am, Tamas K Papp <tkp> wrote:



> (* I don't want to get into a CL vs Clojure debate here.  Arguing

> about the relative merits of vanilla and chocolate ice cream is

> pointless when the third alternative is batshit).



You insensitive clod! batshit ^h^h^h^h newlisp is Benjamin's favorite

flavor!

Quote from: "Benjamin L. Russell on comp.lang.lisp"On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:34:57 -0700 (PDT), Raffael Cavallaro



<raffaelcavall> wrote:

>On Mar 26, 7:48?am, Tamas K Papp <tkp> wrote:



>> (* I don't want to get into a CL vs Clojure debate here. ?Arguing

>> about the relative merits of vanilla and chocolate ice cream is

>> pointless when the third alternative is batshit).



>You insensitive clod! batshit ^h^h^h^h newlisp is Benjamin's favorite

>flavor!



Whatever gave you that idea?  I was trying to have a newLISP newsgroup

created initially because I had discovered a bug (now fixed) in its

evaluation of multi-line statements in its GUI REPL, and just wanted a

dialect-specific newsgroup where I could discuss the issue and have a

high probability of getting feedback specifically from newLISP users.

I hadn't wanted to try this newsgroup at first because this newsgroup

hadn't seemed frequented by newLISP users; most of the discussion

seemed to focus on Common Lisp.  I also hadn't wanted to post that

topic on the newLISP Web board because I didn't like that kind of

interface and wanted to write using my newsreader.



Then it seemed that in order to have the newsgroup created, I needed

to promote discussion, which required promoting the topic, which

required promoting the language, so I wound up promoting what I could

about the language.  Little did I realize what I was getting myself

into at first....

Quote from: "Tamas K Papp on comp.lang.lisp"On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:25:41 +0900, Benjamin L. Russell wrote:

> Then it seemed that in order to have the newsgroup created, I needed to

> promote discussion, which required promoting the topic, which required

> promoting the language, so I wound up promoting what I could about the

> language.  Little did I realize what I was getting myself into at

> first....



Thanks for admitting that you are only trying to generate discussion

to have a newLisp ng created, not because you had something to

discuss.  I have bookmarked this article, and will be happy to refer

to it when the issue of a newLisp ng is raised again (if ever).



I hope that you realize that all your attempts to generate gratuitous

"discussion" about newLisp will be recognized as an abuse of Usenet,

and your proposals to create a newLisp ng will be judged accordingly.

Quote from: "Benjamin L. Russell on comp.lang.lisp"On 27 Mar 2009 08:51:39 GMT, Tamas K Papp <tkp> wrote:



>[...]



"Abuse of Usenet?"  Riiight.  When I posted a message to

news.groups.proposals urging creation of a comp.lang.lisp.newlisp

newsgroup, one respondent wrote back that "guiding the discussion" was

one of my "duties of a proponent," as follows:



> > > I also haven't checked the lisp newsgroup to know what sort

> > > of stumping/PR you've done there.



> > I haven't done much there lately.



> Maybe you don't understand the duties of a proponent.  Follow the discussion

> on appropriate groups.  Guide the discussion.  Do supporting PR for the group.

> All during the RFD process.  After the vote then look for at least one user on

> each of the major NSPs and get them to request the group be added.  Be a

> user on at least one NSP and make the request yourself.  Make sure the group

> gets some traffic in the first year by posting on topic at least monthly.



So by following the advice of one of the respondents on new.groups.proposals for "guiding the discussion" in fulfilling my "duties of a proponent," I was committing "an abuse of Usenet, and [my] proposals to create a newLisp ng will be judged accordingly."



Riiight.  If I don't "guid[e] the discussion," then I get a private e-mail message from a member of news.groups.proposals accusing me of not "fulfilling my duties as a proponent," and if I do, then I get a response on this newsgroup that that constitutes "an abuse of Usenet."



I have bookmarked this article, and will be happy to refer to it if any issue of your ever creating any newsgroup is raised (if ever).

Quote from: "unixtechie"Unfortunately, the two long-timers on this forum fail to appreciate one important factor, that of VISIBILITY and CONNECTEDNESS.



[...]



Newlisp is vastly underappreciated because it LACKS VISIBILITY.



[...]



So, whether as a separate newsgroup or as a constant presence in the most populated LISP group on Usenet, newlisp should exist, and I would applaud the efforts of the first poster and fully agree with his appreciation of newlisp as having a good potential to become very popular scripting language due to its size and self-containedness on top of the powerful capabilities of lisp.



[...]

Quote from: "newdep"Personal promotion of newlisp is by using it in reallife environment

on highlevel servers and developing tools with newlisp that run on these.

Not only on our company systems but worldwide. The advantage of this

is, beside the fact that its newlisp, that users need to learn to maintain the

tools/applications, So they have to learn newlisp if they want to adjust the

tools/applications..(Gotja! ;-)



Oh yes..wearing the T-Shirt when going abroad ;-)

Quote from: "Jeff"I certainly appreciate the reasoning behind it, but I don't think that newlisp is in common enough use to warrant its own usenet group any more than arc does.  Certainly both have a small enough audience (at the moment) that they could be discussed in comp.lang.lisp (or perhaps scheme for arc, perhaps [although I haven't the faintest idea on that one]).



comp.lang.lisp is not, after all, comp.lang.commonlisp :)

Quote from: "Doug Freyburger"I've gradually come to think it's worth the price anyways.

I've been on UseNet since the early 1980s and while

groups come and go and ISPs come and go UseNet

survives. It even has archives that survive.  I've also been

on web boards since the late 1990s and they tend to

come and go without archives.



It will of course be resisted by old timers but I think doing

gateways between web boards and newsgroups can give

the advantages of both to discussion groups and give new

life to newsgroup traffic.  It has the potential to be as large

an impact as the large ISPs arrriving on UseNet and would

definitely be a strange experience.



I would love to see the newlisp group be an experiment to

see how it works.  I for one expect old time UseNet folks

to complain about context quoting and such and figure it

will be a part of the exercise.



The main objection to the group has been traffic currently

on UseNet.  Gateway would handle that.  Cooperation

would be needed with the web board owner.  Existing

software would be needed or new software written.

QuoteThere must be  a fatal flaw in this system, if you have to tag your

multiline expressions with an horror such as [cmd][/cmd].



The algorithms to read expressions, whatever the number of lines, have

been know and implemented in Lisp for 50 years.  Perhaps you should

try a Lisp that includes the teachings of history?  Try Common Lisp.



http://clisp.cons.org">http://clisp.cons.org has a MS-Windows executable, and when entering a

multiline expression in the emacs IDE (eg. via M-x inferior-lisp RET),

there's no discernable difference to when entering it directly in the

console.



--

__Pascal Bourguignon__

Quote from: "Lutz"The problem with [cmd][/cmd] tags in the newLISP-GS Java front-end has been fixed. Download a new guiserver.jar from:



http://www.newlisp.org/downloads/development/guiserver.jar">http://www.newlisp.org/downloads/develo ... server.jar">http://www.newlisp.org/downloads/development/guiserver.jar



and install on Win32 as: $PROGRAMFILES/newlisp/guiserver.jar



or install on Mac OS X and other Unix as: /usr/share/newlisp/guiserver.jar



ps: corrected URL, thanks Dave

Quote from: "xytroxon"

Quote from: "cormullion"
What's Usenet?



(ducks :-)

I foolishly posted exactly three messages to what I thought was a "safe" and fairly obscure usenet group (LUA programming language), 4 years ago...



I still get 150 to 200 spam-scam e-mails a month!!!!

Quote
I fear few Lispers will ever love or use newLISP....



After all, it took a lot of time, dedication, and sheer herculean effort to install and configure that 25 to 50 megabyte distro and getting it customized to work "just right"...



And that was just for emacs ;)

Quote from: "DekuDekuplex"It seems that the REPL in newLISP-GS is not compatible with the Japanese version of Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2, because it does not recognize carriage returns properly.  Unless this problem is fixed, I wll be forced to copy and paste multiline entries via an editor, which is quite an inconvenience.



-- Benjamin L. Russell

Quote from: "DekuDekuplex"

Quote from: "DekuDekuplex"

Quote from: "DrDave"[...]



Are you using a Japanese version of Win XP, or perhaps have some other text-related problems due to Japanese? In other applications,  I sometimes run into anamolies (bugs) in character placement in right-to-left languages that disappear when I paste the same text into a pure English Win XP installation.

Yes, in fact I am using a Japanese version of Windows XP, but this problem has not occurred in any other similar applications.  For example, I also use DrScheme, but this problem doesn't occur there (although DrScheme does have a problem with frequent intermittent hangs in the "Open File" dialog box).



Is there a way to solve this problem without replacing the OS?



-- Benjamin L. Russell

Interestingly, this problem does not occur if I simply cut and paste the multiline code from another application into the REPL in newLISP-GS, but only if I type it in directly.  The same problem occurs independently of whether the Japanese IME (Input Method Editor) is activated.



-- Benjamin

Quote from: "DekuDekuplex"

Quote from: "DrDave"[...]



Are you using a Japanese version of Win XP, or perhaps have some other text-related problems due to Japanese? In other applications,  I sometimes run into anamolies (bugs) in character placement in right-to-left languages that disappear when I paste the same text into a pure English Win XP installation.

Yes, in fact I am using a Japanese version of Windows XP, but this problem has not occurred in any other similar applications.  For example, I also use DrScheme, but this problem doesn't occur there (although DrScheme does have a problem with frequent intermittent hangs in the "Open File" dialog box).



Is there a way to solve this problem without replacing the OS?



-- Benjamin L. Russell

Quote from: "DrDave"[...]



Are you using a Japanese version of Win XP, or perhaps have some other text-related problems due to Japanese? In other applications,  I sometimes run into anamolies (bugs) in character placement in right-to-left languages that disappear when I paste the same text into a pure English Win XP installation.