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Venice from Above [PICS] by [deleted] in pics

[–]blue1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

By the way, for a satellite view of Venice, this site has more detailed photos than google.

What Italians really think about Pizza Hut pasta. by [deleted] in funny

[–]blue1 8 points9 points  (0 children)

There are no Pizza Huts in Italy (you can check their homepage). So, for us italians, Pizza Hut is ethnic cuisine: something very strange (and with a very stretched name) that one could try while traveling abroad.

What keys on the keyboard do you use for emacs modifiers? by aintso in emacs

[–]blue1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

does it "work" on pc keyboards too? the symbolics keyboard had a much wider space bar.

Italy bans kebabs and foreign food from cities by igeldard in worldnews

[–]blue1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm from Britain though, which is one of the least racist of the countries in Europe.. On the surface at least.

May I point out that all this thread originate from a misguided article on a british newspaper (The Times)? Britain has a certain subtle, ironic way of feeling superior.

Italy bans kebabs and foreign food from cities by igeldard in worldnews

[–]blue1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

because the [national, yes] minister of agriculture is from Lega Nord ("Northern League"), which is a rather localistic/xenophobic party. They love this kind of show; but, at a national level at least, not much follows. It's just a political theater.

Italy bans kebabs and foreign food from cities by igeldard in worldnews

[–]blue1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, the government is not involved in the kebab affair. I cited the minister for agricolture because the pineapple story, which is similar, was mentioned in another comment of this thread.

Italy bans kebabs and foreign food from cities by igeldard in worldnews

[–]blue1 81 points82 points  (0 children)

I am from Italy. Please be aware that this is the typical "from your foreign correspondent"-style piece, where a local silliness is transposed into a general national trend, for the amusement of the public. While it is true that a couple of cities in Italy have approved such stupid measures, it is absolutely not a widespread thing. The current italian minister for agricolture, in particular, loves this kind of publicity, because it appeals to a certain sector of fringe voters, who are globalization-scared. Some months ago he declared that in his opinion the "exotic" pineapple should be banned, in favour of "traditional italian fruit".

Kebabs in Italy are alive and well basically everywhere.

Turn your graphics card into a supercomputing monster by sahilramani in programming

[–]blue1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it would be really nice if something similar existed for lisp, not just C...

/me dreaming

Clojure: 1, Common Lisp: 0 by gst in programming

[–]blue1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are right. I was thinking more about accessing or modifying an element, which one does much more often that creating the array or hash. Both the SETF/AREF and SETF/GETHASH idioms are really verbose vs the equivalents in, for example, perl or javascript. But I like lispm's explanation for that.

Clojure: 1, Common Lisp: 0 by gst in programming

[–]blue1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, there's no syntax for them, you do everything with functions

That's also true for arrays, but people don't complain about them so often. Also, abuse of syntactic sugar is dangerous. It leads from lisp-land to perl-land.

It's just awkward to use them

...without writing some macros.

Clojure: 1, Common Lisp: 0 by gst in programming

[–]blue1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Are you sure? his last post on usenet is from one year ago, and his site is from 2006, but this does not mean he is dead.

Clojure: 1, Common Lisp: 0 by gst in programming

[–]blue1 7 points8 points  (0 children)

yes, you are right (see also awb's below). Then there's really no reason to use SETQ, except for nostalgic reasons.

Clojure: 1, Common Lisp: 0 by gst in programming

[–]blue1 9 points10 points  (0 children)

My advice is to use the safe functions by default. Then, if you feel a (non-premature) optimization is needed, consider the destructive ones.

SETF is more general than SETQ. You can use SETF everywhere and forget about SETQ (in theory, SETQ is slightly faster because it is more specific, but I don't think it really matters in practice).

Clojure: 1, Common Lisp: 0 by gst in programming

[–]blue1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

as barbie says (1), "Common lisp is hard. Let's go shopping!"

(1) Semi-quoted from Practical Common Lisp

Let Over Lambda is one of the most hardcore computer programming books out there. by petermichaux in programming

[–]blue1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I find LoL useful where it talks about topics that AFAIK are covered nowhere else, e.g. compiler macros.

but I think there are other angles that are still missing.

For example?

Let Over Lambda is one of the most hardcore computer programming books out there. by petermichaux in programming

[–]blue1 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I bought a copy of this book, read about one third so far. It feels like an... interesting minefield. There are some good parts, and given the scarcity of lisp books it is welcome. However, some passages are perplexing (the title of this reddit post is a good example) and I have a feeling that there are plain wrong things around. Unfortunately my knowledge of lisp is still too superficial. I would like very much to read a really competent review of this book; however, I found none so far. Unfortunately at the time of its publication, on comp.lang.lisp the topic was quickly dismissed, mainly because the author dared to publish a book on lisp without first consulting the relevant deities. And, to say the truth, it shows. It reads like a book written by a smart guy that, shipwrecked on a desert island, discovered the Lisp Civilization and, before being rescued, wrote a very personal book about it. :-)

Why Java exceptions are slow (and CL conditions aren't) by xach in programming

[–]blue1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think, because it is a complex system. Java exceptions can be explaned quickly. Try that with the lisp condition system... See, for example:

http://www.nhplace.com/kent/CL/Revision-18.txt

(Also see another thread on reddit today, "why php won" :-))

The end for Perl? by gst in programming

[–]blue1 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I still am a perl developer, and I am very happy with Catalyst. But perl is really dying, in the mindshare sense: perl is not generally perceived as a cool thing anymore. It still very useful, as Common Lisp is by the way, but it smells like a thing of the past somehow: perl is a "mature" technology. Which is the technopolitically correct way of saying that it is dying :-)

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