GNU bug report logs - #41904
Enhanced Emacs into a full applications development system

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Andrew Goh <andrewgoh95 <at> yahoo.com.sg>
To: "bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org" <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>
Subject: Emacs Lisp
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2020 03:30:29 +0000 (UTC)

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi GNU Team,
I gather that Emacs Lisp is closest to the original Lisp language.  While the other dialects are different, such as Common Lisp, Racket, Scheme, and Clojure.  
Wonder if there is more documentation available than just this guide which I downloaded as a PDF resource: "An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp 3rd Edition".  
Secondly, I will probably have to learn Clojure too if Emacs Lisp is not "enhanced" to become a full Lisp language that can generate programs with concurrency features on all its platforms - Unix, Linux, MacOS and Windows.
Well, that will be it.

Regards,
Andrew Goh S M

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #8 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Arthur Miller <arthur.miller <at> live.com>
To: Andrew Goh via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text
 editors" <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Andrew Goh <andrewgoh95 <at> yahoo.com.sg>, 41904 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#41904: Emacs Lisp
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2020 08:31:37 +0200

Andrew Goh via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text
editors" <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org> writes:

> Hi GNU Team,
>
> I gather that Emacs Lisp is closest to the original Lisp language.  While the other dialects are different, such as Common Lisp, Racket, Scheme, and Clojure.  
>
> Wonder if there is more documentation available than just this guide which I downloaded as a PDF resource: "An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp 3rd Edition".
>  
>
> Secondly, I will probably have to learn Clojure too if Emacs Lisp is not "enhanced" to become a full Lisp language that can generate programs with concurrency features
> on all its platforms - Unix, Linux, MacOS and Windows.
>
> Well, that will be it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Andrew Goh S M
The guide you downloaded is probably the best one, but there are
numerous blogs and smaller guides/articles etc, for example:
http://www.mitchellsoftwareengineering.com/ProgrammingWithGNUEmacsLisp.pdf
https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/computing/programming/LISP/Writing%20GNU%20Emacs%20Extensions%20-%20Bob%20Glickstein.pdf
https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6771

Just do a web search. Emacs Reddit is good place to ask questions too.

What is a "full" Lisp language?

First you say Emacs Lisp is closest to "original" Lisp (whatever it is)
and then you find Common Lisp, Clojure, Scheme etc to be "different". If
Emacs becomes "full Lisp" according to your definition whatever it is,
would it also become "different" as CL, Clojure etc?

Why do you want to learn Emacs Lisp? If you are into writing Emacs
applications then Elisp is your best friend.

If you want to use Lisp as a general programming language to write your
programms in, then you should probably learn Common Lisp and use some
good compiler like SBCL.

Just my personal opinion ...

Message #24 received at 41904 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
To: Andrew Goh <andrewgoh95 <at> yahoo.com.sg>
Cc: 41904 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#41904: Emacs Lisp
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 22:51:15 -0400

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

Clojure is not a dialect of Lisp.  It has fundamental differences --
for instance, it does not represent lists using cons cells.  That means
the most basic programming techniques of Lisp don't work in Clojure.

If Clojure is useful for you, there is nothing wrong with using it --
its implementation is free software, ISTR -- but please don't think of
it as Lisp.

  > Secondly, I will probably have to learn Clojure too if Emacs Lisp
  > is not "enhanced" to become a full Lisp language that can generate
  > programs with concurrency features on all its platforms - Unix,
  > Linux, MacOS and Windows.

Unix, MacOS and Windows are complete operating systems.  Linux is not
a complete operating system, it is a kernel.  So I think you must be
talking about the GNU operating system with Linux as kernel.

Many people call that system "Linux", but that is a confusion.  It
misattributes our work to someone else, which is treating us badly.
Would you please call it "GNU/Linux" to give the GNU Project equal
mention?

See https://gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html and
https://gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html, plus the history in
https://gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html.



-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

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