Really like this counterpoint after all the LISP elitists so often snub other langs. The Ruby version is much more elegant and readable, in this little example. Would love to see more comparisons, specifically hacking around the lack of macros in other langs.
It's hardly much of a counterpoint considering Ruby took a great many ideas from Lisp. If anything, it's a rant about syntax. Overall though, it shows that Lisp did get it right. People love Lisp so long as it's dressed up to look like a non-Lisp.
Being a Lisp enthousiast myself I often find those LISP elitists are people new to the language repeating the tired arguments we have heard so often before.
I "got it" after reading a bulk of SICP and watching some buddy-lectures at http://academicearth.org/courses/the-structure-and-interpret... (I've also started SICM: it's awesome how they use Scheme.[1]) Nevertheless there's still a level I have yet to reach that I hope to achieve with Clojure (which has recently jumped to the top of my list of languages to learn). While Lisp (Scheme in particular, though CL is nice too) is near my heart, my brain still thinks in Python, Python makes me Happy, and that hinders my speed and concentration when I do stuff in Lisp. I liken it to my experience trying to (unsuccessfully) master Dvorak. The layout was easy to memorize so I could touch-type, I could easily see the benefits, and if I ever get spasms in my hands I'm going to force myself to switch over, but dropping from 80-100wpm down to 10-30wpm was too much loss that I didn't let my finger-muscles relearn and so I'm still with QWERTY.
[1] Even though it's trivial I still adore this simple example:
guile> (define D derivative)
guile> (define f (literal-function 'f))
guile> (define f^2 (expt f 2))
guile> (pe ((D f^2) 't))
(* 2 (f t) ((D f) t))
Add in the little things like being able to have boolean-returning-functions ending with '?', Lisp is very free.
Both lisp(s) and smalltalk took me about 18 months of decently serious use before I had a 'I get it moment'. Stick with it and it will come.
I'm hoping that if I keep at it with Haskell, that eventually I'll have my 'I get it' moment with it as I think I can learn a ton from when I get it, much like I did with Lisp and Smalltalk.
I've learned things from many different languages but the two I've learned the most from where Lisp and Smalltalk.
