Re: How powerful is language build in vim compare with the language build in emacs?

On 25 March 2010 23:17, Tony Mechelynck wrote:

> On 15/02/10 23:33, Ben Schmidt wrote:
> [...]
> >
> > Vim is essentially an imperative procedural language.
> > Lisp is essentially a functional language. Most people
> > find imperative languages easier to understand because
> > they're a bit more like recipes and a bit less like
> > Mathematics! Some people find the reverse, though.
> >
> > Lisp is certainly more elegant than Vimscript, which is
> > just a mess, with as many exceptions as rules, and
> > different escaping mechanisms needed every few lines.
> > If you want to do serious programming, Lisp is the way
> > to go. If you want a quick hack, Vimscript is probably
> > easier.

Depends on the hack. Vimscript is a domain-specific
language, so for quick hacks on text files, yeah.

> [...] (also how to compute a square root, but that wasn't
> a required subject; I learnt it from the arithmetics book
> without even telling the teacher, because it was my kind
> of fun). [...]
>
> Lisp looks like Volapük to me;

Then check out the SICP lectures. The videos are online for
free. The first one teaches you the basics of Lisp (well,
Scheme) in a few minutes, and it (or maybe the second one,
I can't remember) shows you how to compute a square root
:-). It really is a wonderful language.

> Vimscript I can (more or less) understand. Of course, the
> Blob argument invalidates this line of reasoning, letting
> it even appear that "therefore" (which I challenge as
> "the argument of obscurity") Lisp would be "more
> powerful" than vimscript. What is "serious" programming
> anyway?

Not having to prefix function parameters with `a:'! :-)

> AFAICT, the collection of Vim plugins run the whole gamut
> from the most serious to the most fun; but of course, for
> heavy number-crunching, vimscript has the same
> performance liabilities as most interpreted languages --
> maybe not really all of them: so perhaps I could say that
> for serious programming, FORTH is the way to go? ;-)

Not sure what you're saying here.

> And BTW, (in answer to another post) how to compute an
> arbitrary sum (of zero or more terms)? IIRC (it was
> several decades ago):
>
> 0
> 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
> PRINT
> ----> 10
>
> Simple isn't it? (And the 0 can be left out if you also
> omit the first +) By the time you've finished entering
> the data, you have the result. :-P

Now put your HP calculator away. :-) --Antony

--
You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist.
Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to.
For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to vim_use+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.