Programming in Lisp - It's like riding a bike
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
This post is already #1 on Reddit today, so I expect that a lot of people will have seen it already; however, I thought it was too good not to mention. In it, the writer tries to convey what it's like to program in Lisp and uses an analogy that was given to him once when he asked a friend about what's it like to ride a bike:
"When you drive a car", he said, "there is a disconnect between your thoughts and the machine. You sense it, but you're never really conscious of it until you get a bike. You want the car to accelerate, you add some gas, and then you have to wait for a split second before the car listens to you. On a bike this delay is so much smaller, your brain doesn't really register it. You think of something, and you're there. A bike becomes a part of you - an extension of your body. You'll probably need a Ferrari to achieve such unity with a car."Classic!
