From ... From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: free lisp compilers? Date: 1999/09/05 Message-ID: <3145546823696766@naggum.no>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 521394442 References: <7qmg3n$tls$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <7qmsvi$7nb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <3145309248987060@naggum.no> <37CFEE27.7753DB94@inka.de> <3145366895717308@naggum.no> <37D0BAB9.6DFAD187@inka.de> <3145425557266623@naggum.no> <37D0E910.98346B35@inka.de> <3145440377704340@naggum.no> <37D13FA0.5EF83E13@inka.de> <87u2pazoqj.fsf@piracy.red-bean.com> <87ogfizj5g.fsf@piracy.red-bean.com> mail-copies-to: never X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.eunet.no X-Trace: oslo-nntp.eunet.no 936558027 28283 193.71.66.49 (5 Sep 1999 19:00:27 GMT) Organization: Naggum Software; +47 8800 8879; +1 510 435 8604; http://www.naggum.no NNTP-Posting-Date: 5 Sep 1999 19:00:27 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp * Rainer Joswig | Which is atleast surprising. People have a very strong visual input | channel. Using the visual clues like color, animation, shape, etc. | should be highly desirable to help people designing software. "people" come in many shapes and forms. some people work exceedingly well with languages and language-based formalisms. other people don't, and work better with visual clues. some people can rotate 3D images in their head without effort. others can only do it with great effort. some people can see patterns emerge in words and text right away, such as spelling mistakes and particular words they are looking for. others fail to see such patterns, but see irregularities in shape with an amazing precision. some would say that some people gravitate towards particular programming languages and even fields of work based on their differences. believing that all humans share any particular trait, like having "a very strong visual input channel" is ignoring the obvious: that few people find more than a handful of people who think exactly like themselves. I for one loathe visual "clues" beyond excellent layout. anything beyond that, especially colors and fonts, cause too much emphasis on stuff I'm not interested in all the time it's visible. drop all the visual crap, and I can look at what interests _me_ at that particular time, focusing on whatever I want to focus on. colorizing code is exactly as out of place as colorizing parts of speech would have been in written text, which people who can read don't generally do. I'm sure it could help kids at some time during their mental development as readers, however. there is much to be said for information visualization, and indeed much has been said, but the kind of lame toys that we find that tools that are designed by people who have read none of the literature use are of help only to people who couldn't find they way around the language without them, and it's not a good idea to let such people program to begin with. #:Erik -- save the children: just say NO to sex with pro-lifers