What's your favorite year end method?

[Johan van Oostrum]

Op 24-dec-2007, om 16:10 heeft Mike or Penny Novack het volgende  
geschreven:
>>>> I have no intention of starting a language flame war here, and I've
>>>> been doing this for long enough (43 years professionally) to  
>>>> know this
>>>> is a religious issue. I'd just hate to see this project repeat a  
>>>> past
>>>> mistake. My $.02.
>>>> And
>>>
> OK, here's MY two cents.
>
> How about a "requirement" that whatever language is chosen have been
> around for at least 10-20 years? Proven its usefulness over time  
> and not
> just the latest fad in programming languages.
>
> The reality is that any "complete" computer language can do anything
> that any other complete language can do. But the ease depends upon the
> exact nature of the problem at hand and whether the nature of the the
> problem at hand will be constant (or an unknown quantity changing over
> time). The less you know (about the problem) at the point you must  
> make
> the language choice the more sensible the choice one of the truly
> "general" languages like LISP is.
>
> I would need to review LISP (and replace my LISP books lost in the  
> fire)
> and would probably want something about the Scheme dialect (and Guile)
> before delving into reports but that would be true as well with any of
> the "fad" languages like Perl or Python(which might be great, might  
> end
> up becoming the next Fortran, COBOL or C --- but I could name a dozen
> languages most of you have never heard of  that were highly touted in
> the period say 1970-1990.
>
> Understand what I am saying? The need to learn LISP vs having  
> plenty of
> people who know Perl or Python is somewhat of an illusion. Based on my
> past experience (low percentage of fad languages that survive) down  
> the
> road I would expect the have exactly the same need to have people  
> learn
> Perl or Python. Nor are we actually talking about learning LISP so  
> well
> as to be real LISP programmers (correct me if I am mistaken, but just
> writing/manipulating reports not likely to be getting into serious  
> LISP
> stuff).
>
> Michael
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After tracking this thread from the beginning, could not think of the  
proper wording for promoting Scheme.

I am a Business Analyst that did some programming in the past. It  
took me less than four odd hours to master Scheme on such a level as  
to be able to modify a report (ad sort-option to the portfolio in GC  
1.8.x)
The one thing would-be report hackers and maintainers should to do is  
read some chapters of the (free) Scheme book by Kent Dybvig: http:// 
www.scheme.com/tspl3/
Without any previous Lisp knowledge. I have to admit, without the  
book I would be lost.

To conclude, knowing some Scheme now, I think it is a wonderfull  
language and worth the little time invested to get to know it.

Regards,
Johan