> If you can find a way to render the articles and comments texts nicely in a terminal I would find it a lot more useful though
I am completely with you on not wanting a flame thread, but: In emacs you can run ansi-term, and open links with w3m right in an emacs buffer. I use if for most of documentation reading all the time (invoke documentation lookup on symbol under point et. al.)
> I had never tried emacs before and decided last week, ironically, to try it for the first time
The fact that Emacs and Vim lack features attractive to newcomers tells nothing about their value.
Musicians and Craftsmen invest years in learning their tools or instruments [1]. One is left to wonder what a Guitar or a Saxophone would be like, if the concern of the designers were ease of use for someone who picked it up the first time. A famous quote comes to mind [2]:
A computer is like a violin. You can image a novice trying first a phonograph and then a violin. The latter, he says, sounds terrible. That is the argument we have heard from our humanists and most of our computer scientists. Computer programs are good, they say, for particular purposes, but they aren't flexible. Neither is a violin, or a typewriter, until you learn how to use it.
Marvin Minsky, "Why Programming Is a Good Medium for Expressing Poorly-Understood and Sloppily-Formulated Ideas"
I further refer you to fine writing of Eric Naggum [3] who had more to say on a similar topic, and I daresay he does it way better than I ever would.
"The fact that Emacs and Vim lack features attractive to newcomers tells nothing about their value. Musicians and Craftsmen invest years in learning their tools or instruments."
Those editors have value to folks that have invested time in learning them but they are not intuitive. Using an editor, or any tool actually, should not require memorization. Functionality should be discoverable.
I can't speak for you or your usage pattern, but I don't have the time, nor the capacity, to memorize commands for every program I use. This would include shortcuts for GUI apps. I use a lot of apps and code in a few languages and use more APIs than I care to. I'm spread thin. I'm not a sysadmin type spending all day in vi, or emacs.
For the languages I code in, I don't know all the features in and out. Ditto for the frameworks/APIs I use. Hell, I don't even know all the features of my IDE.
There's too much to know/deal with. For me, personally, I don't want a text editor to be "something that requires knowledge to use". I just need to use it occasionally, and I just need to make a few edits.
Editing a simple text file in vi/vim is excrutiating. Some people code in that thing. lol. Perhaps a hex editor wasn't readily available.
I think whole point of comparing programming languages from this angle is pointless. You should not go and judge a language by several phrases. Go speak/write/read it for a while, learn some slang.
Like all other languages, programming languages are also just that, languages - tools to express your thoughts. To me and many others Common Lisp reduces the friction between those thoughts and written description of them. It is so much more to this language than just its syntax and politics. It is joy to develop in thanks to SLIME, it almost never gets in your way, it performs, it has wisdom of half a century and people who possess it. Yes, it is far from perfect, but then again - there is no perfect language! and even if there was one it would sound like those studio processed pop-star voices rather than perfection to me, because it would still superimpose its perfection over you own views.
In other words, please don't judge the language by how you can pronounce "how can I get to the city centre", it sounds similar in most.
Now all this spoken/written language comparison might sound weird to you, but to me it makes perfect sense, because programming to me is nothing but a dialogue between me, computer and the future version of me reading the source. And I like the language which allows me to do this on my terms, rather than that of Guido, Matz or whoever. And to me Common Lisp is pretty close to that.
P.S. Just as a side note, folks on #lisp and #sbcl are one of the most pragmatic and intelligent people I have ever seen, I learned more from their discussions than by reading a couple of books. To any of you reading, rock on Lispers ;)
first of all, thank you very much for this generous offer, it is very kind of you.
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i am currently working in networking support (cisco stuff), but i know some python and common lisp. i am very interested in programming, compiler technology, languages (i speak 3 and currently learning 4th) and teaching (i worked as a trainer for cisco networking academy for 7 years).
i am mostly self-taught, learned english mostly from reading books/docs and listening to music/tv. i know little about many things and much about few, if any.
currently i am trying to change my job to programming because i want to gain experience in the field and ultimately get a chance to implement some of many ideas and help develop some which i would love to see advance (e.g. what sal khan is doing).
i see mathematics as a very important skill that i need to master since it is in big part connected to all of the domains i am passionate about. my current skills are pretty slacking but i do have good imagination and learn fast.
the most recent physics/math problem i have is directly connected to one particular job opportunity. i am developing a python application which does certain sound singnal analysis and will also include various software testing practices including some code analysis. this project will serve as a demonstration to my potential employer that i have mastered the skill enough to be hired.
i am using khanacademy heavily for basic stuff, but most of the things are not covered there and many a time i have to rely on wikipedia solely.
if you are interested in any of the following areas i can teach you in exchange: learning a rare and unique foreign language, programming basics, networking, linux stuff.
i am in a bit of a trouble with time-frame though since i am in CET zone and i don't really have flexible work hours.
Facebook really changed the world, as far as new advertising platforms go.. as for communication, it is funny how many of us continue to use IRC just as effectively as 15 or so years ago.
