X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f
X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2015 06:36:07 +0100 (CET)
X-X-Sender: igor2 AT igor2priv
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
X-Debug: to=geda-user AT delorie DOT com from="gedau AT igor2 DOT repo DOT hu"
From: gedau AT igor2 DOT repo DOT hu
Subject: Re: [geda-user] FOSDEM
In-Reply-To: <4519DAF0-51CC-4037-94FB-E5EDD1E1EE45@noqsi.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.00.1502060623290.7324@igor2priv>
References: <1420499386 DOT 3521 DOT 3 DOT camel AT cam DOT ac DOT uk> <20150202152654 DOT GA13336 AT cuci DOT nl> <54CFD589 DOT 9040702 AT xs4all DOT nl> <CAHBYzfRkn-nJb4JfrDYyaD0WwPrpZvAgi0QdHCusgz185iNoHA AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CAGde_xN-iNZUvHh-E47kx1EyoPRt1018wWiDwHhYQ9+od+cJwA AT mail DOT gmail DOT com>
 <20150203112631 DOT 3507a0c1 AT Parasomnia DOT thuis DOT lan> <20150204054256 DOT Horde DOT Pm1JV8RJbICk9SHvIGwZ7A3 AT webmail DOT in-berlin DOT de> <CAOP4iL2stWVCy3WK0=SNu2zAbs8t6B0uyAgFuOnzG8v_MrYNfw AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <CAGde_xN5gs5r_on=HP2RN7cy6E=2EL9eK3cp+sd9BfBaWNLVew AT mail DOT gmail DOT com>
 <20150204193720 DOT Horde DOT 42xUN-NzhCJRWZne-M5eCQ1 AT webmail DOT in-berlin DOT de> <90236728-E79D-47C7-BFB1-34140DB85ACB AT sbcglobal DOT net> <CAOFvGD4M48Ap=UQzL_T3yzas2rJrNFfxXRUOkOe8gA8J3bQCHg AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <alpine DOT LNX DOT 2 DOT 02 DOT 1502050141070 DOT 24630 AT localhost DOT localdomain>
 <54D3B04A DOT 3080308 AT neurotica DOT com> <alpine DOT LNX DOT 2 DOT 02 DOT 1502051225450 DOT 11811 AT localhost DOT localdomain> <54D3B7FF DOT 7010401 AT neurotica DOT com> <4519DAF0-51CC-4037-94FB-E5EDD1E1EE45 AT noqsi DOT com>
User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (DEB 1167 2008-08-23)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com
X-Mailing-List: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com
Precedence: bulk



On Thu, 5 Feb 2015, John Doty wrote:

> Except that I know many more people who are comfortable in Python than are comfortable in any dialect of Lisp (although there?s a Clojure programmer in my kitchen at the moment). And while there is some familiarity with Lisp in the EDA community, a bit of review of the gnetlist back ends would suggest there is not a great deal of Lisp mastery in the gEDA community.

I can second this. While python is not my favorite language, it's at least 
closer to the usual procedural language stuff many people got used to. If 
I had thousands of lines of code in the netlister for example and had to 
change a tiny part, I would find my way much-much faster in python or lua 
than in any lisp dialect.

Before you say it's a personal preference and background question, yes it 
is.

But before you say it's because I didn't spend time on scheme... I did. To 
solve my gnetlist problems, I've written gnetlist plugins to output the 
netlist in various text formats so that I can easily process them with 
other languages. It took surprisingly long to clone an existing 
netlist backend and turn it into a simple "just print all data without 
trying to process too much". For me, it was because of scheme (and in 
general, the lisp dialect and the functional paradigm).

So face it, there are people efficient with lisp while other people find 
this paradigm a show-stopper when it comes to editing sources of a 
largeish software. There's an intersection, but majority of potentional 
users will tend to be not in there. There won't be a decision that makes 
everyone happy.

However, bringing in PR like lua being a toy (... or lisp and dialects 
being academic) won't change this.

Regards,

Igor2