🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <NJ104.94Nov4124747@hilsa.amtp.cam.ac.uk>,
Neil Jerram <nj104@amtp.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <39bjv1$bir@csnews.cs.Colorado.EDU> Tom Christiansen
><tchrist@mox.perl.com> writes: 
>
>   scheme isn't "accessible" to the layman (remember: plenty of sysadmins
>   aren't even C programmers, let alone lisp programmers) but rms knows this,
>   and is why he's advocated a higher level binding as well.
>
>At the risk of repeating myself...
>(but this is a persistent claim that just won't die!)
>
>I was a layman a few years ago.  I found Emacs Lisp very accessible
>and easy to learn.  C was harder (kept crashing 'cos I didn't alloc
>the strings!) and sh-like languages are still a matter of
>`"$experiment"\"'?'` for me.
>
>Am I the only one?

No. However, most sysadmin types already know some C, and don't know any
Lisp. They don't have time (or don't think they have time) to learn a new
language, because they're too busy keeping hackers out, tidying up files,
saving space, installing new software, patching the system and so on.

The result is that they are not going to feel happy about having to learn
a Lisp-like language. Yes, it's cleaner than C, sh etc. But (1) they don't
know that, and (2) they already know C, sh etc.

Of course, the intention is that it be possible to use GEL without using
a Lisp-like syntax, which should make a big difference in perceived
approachability; and there is not (so far as I have been able to work out)
any intention that .*rc files will have to be rewritten in a parenthesis-rich
form. So perhaps it doesn't matter.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan     Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.    [Research student]