Mail Archives: opendos/1997/05/18/00:53:19
On Sun, 18 May 1997, Alaric B. Williams wrote:
> > > A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.
>
> For those not in the know, in LISP, all expressions return a value;
> bit like in C or C++ where you only have functions, not "procedures",
> except that in C/C++ you have constructs like for that do not evaluate
> to anything. In Lisp, everything has a value. The bit about the
> "cost" stems from the myth that LISP is slow :-)
Memory usage and the cost of DRAM. :-) From the Jargon File:
All LISP functions and programs are expressions that return
values; this, together with the high memory utilization of LISPs,
gave rise to Alan Perlis's famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar
Wilde quote) that "LISP programmers know the value of everything
and the cost of nothing".
*My* signature is also a quote taken from the Jargon File (originally from
a book by Dijkstra).
Pierre Phaneuf
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
regarded as a criminal offense." - Edsger W. Dijkstra.
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