5.0407 LISP, Scheme, Logo, Humanists (3/65)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 24 Oct 1991 20:52:04 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0407. Thursday, 24 Oct 1991.
(1) Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1991 23:02 MST (21 lines)
From: Sigrid Peterson <SIGPETER@UTAHCCA.BITNET>
Subject: Re:5.0405 LISPing and SCHEMEing as Humanists
(2) Date: Tue, 22 Oct 91 08:17:19 -0600 (23 lines)
From: dirish@math.utah.edu
Subject: RE: LISP and Scheme
(3) Date: Wed, 23 Oct 91 13:14:38 BST (21 lines)
From: Ron W. P. Brasington <llsling1@uk.ac.rdg.susssys1>
Subject: LISP for Humanists
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1991 23:02 MST
From: Sigrid Peterson <SIGPETER@UTAHCCA.BITNET>
Subject: Re:5.0405 LISPing and SCHEMEing as Humanists
Computer Sciences, here, offers a course called Programming Language
Concepts, on the graduate level, and Software Fundamentals: Programming
Language Structure, on the undergraduate level -- same course, except
that the graduate level course "May only be taken by graduate students
from other departments," who have some experience in programming. The
text is by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman, with Julie Sussman,
_Structure and Interpreta- tion of Computer Programs_, Cambridge,
Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1985. This is probably one of the books
that Christian Allegre would have had to dig out.
Anyone who has read D. R. Hofstadter, _Go%del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal
Golden Braid_, Basic Books, 1979, will be delighted (or some other word)
to know that SCHEME and presumably LISP are recursive computer languages;
that is, a routine can call itself.
Sigrid Peterson
sigpeter@cc.utah.edu
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------36----
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 91 08:17:19 -0600
From: dirish@math.utah.edu
Subject: RE: LISP and Scheme
Just to avoid confusion on the part of people who are investigating
LISP and SCHEME I would like to point out that SCHEME is not LISP.
So if you get a book that is going to teach you LISP be sure to get a
LISP system and vice versa.
For those who care, LISP is dynamically scoped and SCHEME is lexically
scoped. This means that in LISP the value of a variable (I am
speaking loosely here) is determined by the context in which a
function is called, and in SCHEME it is determined by the context in
which it is defined. This is not as trivial a difference as it may
seem and for someone just learning it would be a baffling difference.
Dudley Irish
________________________________________________________________________
Dudley Irish / dirish@math.utah.edu / Manager Computer Operations
Center for Scientific Computing, Dept of Mathematics, University of Utah
The views expressed in this message do not reflect the views of the
Dept of Mathematics, the University of Utah, or the State of Utah.
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------34----
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 91 13:14:38 BST
From: Ron W. P. Brasington <llsling1@uk.ac.rdg.susssys1>
Subject: LISP for Humanists
Why not use LOGO instead? I have been using this for some years now with
both humanist students generally and linguistics students in particular.
The transfer from LOGO to LISP is extremely straightforward for those who
need to make it and the initial stages are considerably easier (even if
deep down LISP is actually simpler). There are versions of LOGO for the
Mac. I am currently using Terrapin LOGO, which has a good set of
primitives (including provision for property lists).
Ron Brasington
Department of Linguistic Science
University of Reading
Whiteknights
Reading
RG6 2AA UK
ron.brasington@reading.ac.uk