Re: New Perl Features are Just Sugar From Language X

At the moment I'm learning LISP, and it's interesting to see so much stuff that is new and confusing and (probably) coming in Perl 6 already in use in (Common) Lisp for decades - e.g. coroutines & continuations, a really useful macro system, etc...

To contrast - Common Lisp was standardized in 1986, and the original LISP was implemented in the 1960's, while Perl 1 was released december 1987.

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

Comment on Re: New Perl Features are Just Sugar From Language X

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Re^2: New Perl Features are Just Sugar From Language X by tilly (Archbishop) on Oct 12, 2004 at 23:42 UTC
According to The Implementation of LISP, the original LISP actually was implemented in 1959. As for coroutines and continuations, these are not built into Common Lisp. However if you write the right macros and adhere to strict standards, you can achieve them. Or if you postprocess Common Lisp, you can again create continuations. See On Lisp for details. What we don't often hear in the Perl community is that continuations are not necessarily a positive feature in a language. For an example of why not, what belongs in a useful stack backtrace if you are using continuations?	[reply]

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Re^2: New Perl Features are Just Sugar From Language X
by tilly (Archbishop) on Oct 12, 2004 at 23:42 UTC

The Implementation of LISP

As for coroutines and continuations, these are not built into Common Lisp. However if you write the right macros and adhere to strict standards, you can achieve them. Or if you postprocess Common Lisp, you can again create continuations. See On Lisp for details.

What we don't often hear in the Perl community is that continuations are not necessarily a positive feature in a language. For an example of why not, what belongs in a useful stack backtrace if you are using continuations?

[reply]