Programming Languages

And once again we are here, talking about Lisp. But this entry will be talking about Lisp indirectly. In this post I’m going to talk about the podcast “Rich Hickey on Clojure”. Who is Rich Hickey? The designer o creator of Clojure and what is Clojure? A functional programming language based on Lisp. What really caught my attention here is that Rich Hickey mentioned that the failure of Lisp or the reason why Lisp was not mainstream is because it was not designed to be that. It was designed to be used by “super users, researches and smart people” that want to solve hard problems. Basically, this can be considered as one reason of Clojure’s existence. We can say that Clojure is an old or traditional Lisp, but with some important differences or improvements. Traditional Lisp is practically lists of lists or nested lists, while Clojure does not stay only in that data structure, but also involves vectors and maps. This is important because those data structures work as a regular libra...

All started with the term “point-headed bosses”. It was the first time I heard or read about it. But the author’s point is truth. Nowadays, there are programmers out there that thinks that the best programming language to solve any kind of problem is Java. I liked how the author used this fact to start one argument: programming languages are not equivalent and there will always be a different and better language to solve a specific problem. But there is an interesting pattern, each new programming language is becoming more like Lisp. Why? It is like we want to reach something that we already had 60 years ago. I found interesting the fact that Lisp, when it was created, was not meant to be as it is nowadays. John McCarthy didn’t intend to develop a programming language. It was a theorical exercise and an effort to define a convenient alternative to the Turing Machine. It was thanks to Steve Russel that Lisp is as we know it nowadays. He programmed the “eval” (A function that comput...

Dick Gabriel on Lisp. Before listening to this podcast, I had never heard about Dick Gabriel. I have just realized he is a computer scientist graduated from Stanford University, but not a normal one, he uses the Lisp programming language. Actually, he had his own company where they program using Lisp. This is really impressing for me because the only other case of a Lisp based company is the Viaweb case I talked about in my last blog. As I already said, I’m not into Lisp. But I want to support a classmate’s blog that also talks about Lisp and this podcast. In his blog, Guillermo Pérez Trueba talks about the importance and the reason of why Lisp is used in AI programs. Whenever you try to use Lisp, it results confusing for most of the developers, the reason? The sea of parenthesis it uses. Nevertheless, the words of Dick Gabriel start making sense to me. Lisp as a non-syntax syntax programing language and, based on the usage of lists and macros, it gives us a great versatility to d...

Before reading this text, I’d never thought that Lisp, or any programming language based on it, could be used to develop software and even web-based software as the example mentioned, Viaweb. I found interesting that specific case and how the author emphasize that, specially talking about startups, it is important not to do or follow the same processes as the others, it is better to have a secret weapon. In this case it was Lisp which gave them the advantage because of the rapid development they can achieve by using it. I agree with the author when he mentions that the programming language you are using may depend on the objective or the purpose of the project. But it is obvious that no matter what, he prefers Lisp. Actually, he made me to start considering giving Lisp an opportunity. Basically, he is trying to convince us to use Lisp but the only aspect that interests me is considering it on a startup. I really want to start a new and personal business and the author made...

It’s hard and even impossible to imagine a person that can be a true polyglot programmer, since there are more than 2,500 programming languages. This becomes more interesting thinking how the 6,192 human languages have been evolving for a millennium, while the programming languages started just 50 years ago. For me, it’s incredible to think that all the 2,500 programming languages were made as an attempt of reaching “the best notation—or even a good-enough notation—for expressing an algorithm or defining a data structure.” (Hayes, 2006). I really think this is more a personal approach, because, as Hayes said in his article, every single programmer may say that they have found the perfect or the best programming language and I’m sure the answer will differ in most of the cases.  I’d never thought how programming languages are different.  They could differ in syntax, like the use of semicolons (as separator, terminators or not using them), the comments inside a program and...

Hey, my name is José Antonio Malo de la Peña. I think must of you know me as Yuso. I'm at 7th semester of   Computer Science major at Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Estado de México. I'm not sure what am I expecting from this course, but I want to improve my programming skills while learning a new programming language. Also I would like to understand how a programming language is built. My principal hobbies are: Music. I love listening to music. Specially Avenged Sevenfold, The Beatles, Simple Plan, Joan Sebastian and Morat. As you can see, I don't have a favorite music genre.  Soccer. I play soccer since I was a kid. Despite it is one of my passions, I'm not always happy with it. The reason? It consists in two words: Cruz Azul. Videogames. I spent some time playing games like Halo, FIFA, Fortnite, Dark Souls and Resident Evil. My favorite TV programs or series are: Club de Cuervos, Breaking Bad, Two and a Half Men and Limitless.