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by kirkthejerk 4577 days ago
My prob wasn't really about being lost in parenthesis; I had an editor with bracket matching. My prob was the "inside-out" thinking that LISP requires. It's tricky when you're coming from a BASIC/PASCAL/C background.

I'm a sucker for punishment, so after my first (bad) taste of LISP, I took an AI course that was 100% LISP. My AI teacher studied under McCarthy at Stanford, so I probably can't blame him for anything.
2 comments
islon 4577 days ago
In clojure you have thread macros to solve the “inside-out” problem.

(-> 3 (+ 6) (* 7) (/ 12))

or (just an example, fictional names)

(->> object reflector fields (map :balance) (filter #(> % 1000))

Which reads like (pseudo language)

object.reflector().fields().map(:balance).filter(field -> field > 1000)

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6d0debc071 4577 days ago
Did you try thinking aloud what you were writing? Like, while writing (+ 5 6), saying "Sum of five and six." I found the prefix style a little odd until I started doing that.
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