Re: [sl4] How much do languages matter for AGI programming?

From: Samantha Atkins (sjatkins@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Dec 08 2008 - 13:15:10 MST


On Nov 29, 2008, at 12:07 PM, J. Andrew Rogers wrote:

On Nov 29, 2008, at 2:29 AM, Philip Hunt wrote:
2008/11/28 J. Andrew Rogers <andrew@ceruleansystems.com>:

How do you know what paradigms are needed for AI?  And what about the
paradigms LISP does not do well?  Why not use a more paradigm-agile language
(e.g. Python)?

Surely Lisp is more paradigm-agile than Python, because if Lisp
doesn't support a paradigm, you can extend it until it does, using
macros.

This is essentially true of most languages, as they are all capable of supporting whatever paradigm or idiom one wants to use with thick enough abstraction layer -- most programming languages have been implemented in C, after all. In the specific case of Python, while it does not have macros it *does* have other first-class facilities that can accomplish similar things easily.

I am surprised to see you make this  argument since I am pretty sure you know Lisp and thus know how much easier it is to code different paradigms in it compared to most other much more inflexible languages.


- samantha

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