Reporting system - declarative

[Derek Atkins]

Donald Allen <donaldcallen at gmail.com> writes:

>> (cond ((> x 5) (fun a b))) ;; I won't even attempt to properly indent this
>> in gmail
>>
>> vs.
>>
>> if x > 5:
>>
>
> I'm not sure how I fat-fingered this, but the message got sent prematurely,
> destroying my credibility:-)
>
> Anyway, you get my point -- writing that conditional in Python or C looks
> more natural to people and so they prefer it to Scheme/Lisp on those narrow
> terms, forgetting what working in Scheme buys you (personally, I'm more
> productive in Scheme than any other language, and I've written code over a
> long career in most of them; Python is also a strong contender in the
> productivity dept., but there's a lot more to learn and keep in mind than
> with Scheme; it's a much more complex language, even though the code looks
> simple).

Um, I don't see a *HUGE* difference between:

if (x > 5)
{
   if-clause ...
}
else
{
   else-clause ...
}

vs:

(if (> x 5)
 (if-clause)
 (else-clause)
 )

To *my* eyes they look very close (modulo the x > 5 vs. > x 5)

> /Don

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available