Robert Dickow wrote:
> I've started playing with Lisp. I had to do some DNA protein matching and
> analysis routines for a friend in a biomedical informatics program. Lisp
> seems potentially as much fun as Forth, if I ever get to figure out how to
> manage all the parentheses all over the page. ;-) Some sources make
> comparisons between Lisp and Forth, but I think they're really different at
> heart.
>
> Is anyone in this group familiar enough with working in Lisp and Forth to
> make some comments along these lines?

It's been many years since I've touched Lisp. I had to do some work
in it at umich's Radiation Laboratory long ago. It's a fascinating
language, but things pushed it off my plate and it never made it back.

See if you can find a copy of "The Little LISPer" I see one copy on
Amazon at an outrageous price.

There is "a way" to do things in Lisp just like there is in Forth, but
they are not the same. You can iteratively develop in Lisp like you
can in Forth, but the Lisp way is unlike any other I've worked with.
I am not the one to teach the Lisp way, but if you're going to do
nontrivial work in Lisp, you should seek the way. Your application
sounds like a great thing to try in Lisp. Even if you don't solve
your problems, I suspect you'll gain great insight from trying to.

I was just looking at "Practical Common Lisp":
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/. Maybe I'll have to play around with
it again. :)

-Ron
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Received on Wed Feb 03 2010 - 09:41:42 PST