Thread: Why should I learn Lisp?

Originally Posted by Mario F.

We need a metric for how programming languages suck. I suggest the AFB (Another F*ing Bug). The Suck factor (S) is calculated from the following formula:

S = (A + 2B + 3C) - M

Where:
A = Bugs encountered during the development cycle
B = Bugs introduced by implementing new features
C = Bugs only encountered years later after software has been in production
M = Combined cyclomatic complexity of the project

Naturally M would have to be weighted somehow. And the whole result divided by a spectacularly large number, considering how programmers from nearly every programming language are bad at respecting best practices.

The adopted terminology would be -- for two languages, A with AFB 12 and B with AFB 7 -- Language A sucks by a factor of 12 and B sucks by a factor of 7. Or, comparatively, A sucks almost 2 times more than B.

I bet languages like PHP don't actually suck that much and probably why they are so popular. Whereas languages like C and C++ would fail spectacularly on my (biased?) AFB metric.

I always get sucked into these religious debates for some reason... :-)

I would argue that we cannot compare PHP and C/C++ like that Mario. I would further argue that C++ is the PHP of compiled languages!

Now let the war begin! (I just got some popcorn and a coke!)

Originally Posted by Mario F.

But but... it's a metric. It will prove everything!

"Lies, damn lies, and metrics"

I would further argue that C++ is the PHP of compiled languages!

I agree.

Originally Posted by phantomotap

o_O

Your C++ code must be awful.

Soma

Well, my C++ is better than my CUDA, I can tell you that. Self-slam!

But I agree that C++ is the PHP of compiled languages because imagine you know no programming or are brand new. C++ is doing a **** ton of stuff under the hood. Like PHP, it's easy to get something that "just works" and not really understand what's going on underneath which is why I agree with that sentiment.

I'm not saying everyone that starts off with C++ is like this because all you really need to do is just read the documentation carefully and understand the fundamentals of how each STL data structure or algorithm operate. But let's not deny that newbs yolo code.

This is so entertaining, my smug of stea got cold while I was reading this and considering scratching an itch with a Lisp script.

Originally Posted by Nominal Animal

This is so entertaining, my smug of stea got cold while I was reading this and considering scratching an itch with a Lisp script.

Nominal Animal, are you sick or are you drunk at the moment?

I mean, since when do you answer with only 1 sentence?!? Do over and do it right this time, otherwise I will ask a moderator to ban your account, since it has clearly been hacked!