Programming Languages

In the podcast titled "Dick Gabriel on Lisp" by Software Engineering Radio, the guest, Richard P. Gabriel, talks about the characteristics and capabilities of Lisp. An important approach is given to artificial intelligence as the historical context of Lisp. Dick Gabriel does a very good job talking about Lisp, Why? Well, he is a computer scientist, he has degrees in mathematics and artificial intelligence, he has a Lisp company and he also writes poetry! Lisp was one of the earliest functional languages, the computation is done by nesting functions. I agree with Gabriel when he says that it is very interesting, to be able to write Lisp programs using Lisp programs. In other words, the interesting thing is that functions are data and the data can be functions. People who work with artificial intelligence (AI) try to write programs that no one knows how to write, Gabriel thinks that it is the grand goal of Lisp. The language uses a metacircular interpreter, thi...

As programmers, we always ask ourselves what languages we should learn, in what languages we should improve or even if we should learn more, in order to be competent professionals. In this article, Paul Graham writes about the development of his company called ViaWeb, whose software was developed mainly in the programming language called LISP. LISP was the key because it gave them a significant competitive advantage. Graham confirms something we all know: software is a very competitive business, the company that makes the best software in the fastest way, takes over the market and leaves out all its competitors. The author reveals the key to avoid this situation: choose the right technology and focus on doing what others are not doing. Do something weird! Graham and Morris, creators of ViaWeb, saw the great potential of LISP: speed, cost, and unique characteristics. Making use of a 'strange' language allowed them to dominate the market and their company began to gr...

According to the article The Semicolon Wars, written by Brian Hayes, there are about between 2,500 and 8,500 programming languages. It's a Madness! With all these programming languages, it is complex to answer the following question: Which programming language is the best? Although I don't know more than 20 programming languages , I agree with the author when he mentions: "what's most fascinating about programming languages is how dramatically they differ." Diversity is good ! The different categories of programming languages adapt to different ways of thinking and focus on solving different types of problems. All languages have their advantages, disadvantages, and limitations, there is no such thing as a silver bullet. Something I found very interesting and reflexive, was the argument of the linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf , that maybe it can not be applied in human language but in the language of computers: " w...

Hi! My name is Gabriela Silva, I'm 22 years old and I'm a ISC student. What do I expect from the Programming Languages course?  This course seems to be quite challenging and different from other classes I've taken. I'm excited to learn new and different things, it's the first time I work with Clojure, so I hope to learn a lot about this language and also about the different programming techniques that we will study throughout this course.  About me! - Hobbies and personal interests I spend a lot of time listening to music, I just can not live without it. One of my favorite hobbies is reading, so I'm happy because we are going to read a good novel in the course. I also love baking, whenever I have the opportunity, I do it. And of course, I love watching movies and TV series. Things I recently enjoyed  Books:   A very good compilation of short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. My true love gave to me: a book of Christmas stories. ...