Re: Lisp is Sin

Pascal Bourguignon <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Harald Hanche-Olsen <hanche@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>> I think it may be useful to think of an invention as more of a
>> discovery if it is necessary or very much better suited than any
>> alternative to the task at hand.
>
> I think that since we have on line dictionnaries, there's no excuse
> not to read it more, and constat that to invent is synonym of to
> discover and to discover is synonym of to invent.

Or just bite the bullet and come out as a Platonist. One of the
reasons, surely, for Lisp's superiority is that it is based on an
attempt to formalize all mathematics in terms of a concept that is
simplicity itself. Thus the rules for "parsing" an expression can be
written in two lines, then we can get onto the interesting stuff.

--
Tiarnán
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: When Did Mathmatics Come About
    ... then discover that, like any game with rules, you can do a lot more with ... That isn't how most mathematics got discovered. ... but even more just grows out of other math. ... want to solve equations in radicals, and so you invent group theory and ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: The Flow of Time.
    ... |>>>To Henri, ... |>> Did Mozart invent or discover his music? ... |>> Did man create them or simply discover that they could be made to exist. ... |>>>that one day he discovered a law of nature. ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Lisp is Sin
    ... I believe that inventors of non-obviousdevices should be rewarded with patents, that discoverers of extant phenomena should be fêted but not granted patents, and that patent offices should better mind the distinction. ... and constat that to invent is synonym of to discover and to discover is synonym of to invent. ... The best that can be said of many web dictionaries is that they may give someone a vague understanding of a word's meaning. ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: Lisp is Sin
    ... and constat that to invent is synonym of to discover and to discover is synonym of to invent. ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: Poll - are you a platonist?
    ... Han de Bruijn schrieb: ... Ph.D. mathematics; papers published in mathematics ... But first you have to _invent_ what a prime is: ... you will _discover_ that they have interesting properties. ...
    (sci.math)