Re: Control of Human Language [was: Apprenticeship]

  (defun munge-list (lst)
    (labels ((helper (l a)
               (if (null l)
                   a
                 (helper (cdr l) (cons (munge (car a)) a)))))
      (reverse (helper lst ()))))
 
looks.  There's nothing wrong with expressing the idea that way.
There is something wrong with doing so in Common Lisp, though,
particularly if one is a CL'er who is just trying to import Scheme's
hatred of iteration.  That's fine for them in their language, and it's
going to be an accent that comes through when they speak CL, which is
also just fine.  However, claiming that the above should be preferred
over
 
  (defun munge-list (list)
    (loop for elt in list
          collecting (munge elt)))
 
is not okay.  It's perverting a perfectly good language, not to
optimize for communication, but to make it a cheap imitation of a
perfectly good language that already exists.

Another worshipper of CL (COBOL-Like) and LOOP that has no
affinity whatsoever for Lispy programming.

(map abs '(0 -2 4 -6))
 ===>
(0 2 4 6)

Is it true that users of CL inspired the making of
the movie "Idiocracy"?