Subject: Re: Resources & Compilers
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: 28 Oct 2000 09:52:23 +0000
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3181715543639805@naggum.net>

* "Paulo J. Matos aka PDestroy" <pdestroy@netcabo.pt>
| I'd like to start on LISP.

  I think that's a very good idea, as long as you mean Common Lisp.
  (It was spelled "LISP" in ancient times, like many other acronyms
  that were capitalized.  These days, it's spelled "Lisp".)

| I already know Scheme and since Scheme is a dialect of Lisp I suspect that
| the are similar.

  I think these are very bad ideas.  Knowing Scheme is harmful to
  using other languages efficiently.  Thinking that other languages
  are like Scheme is harmful to learning them.  Generally speaking.
  It depends of course on how many bad habits you picked up from
  Scheme, but it is a language that rewards the bad while trying to
  teach some good.  E.g., if you want iteration, use iteration, don't
  just _call_ it recursion and hope you have tail call merging so it
  becomes iteration.  In general, recursion is good if you don't
  traverse something in only one direction.  Scheme teaches recursion
  mostly for traversing structures in only one direction, and that's
  an incredible waste.

| I would like the best net resources, reference books and an IDE or a
| compiler for windows.  I need sugestions...

  www.alu.org

  I would personally suggest the Allegro CL environment from Franz
  Inc.  The trial edition for Windows includes the IDE, but has a few
  restrictions to force you to purchase a license instead of using it
  for commercial development.  These may get in the way at times.

#:Erik
-- 
  Does anyone remember where I parked Air Force One?
                                   -- George W. Bush