5/20    I have seen some ocaml comments on the motd.  What about Haskell?
        Is it better/worse/about the same?  I know it is supposed to "pure"
        but don't know what this translates to in reality.
        \_ Haskell is the only language I want to know something about, yet
           know almost nothing about.  I know it's not speedy, unlike ocaml,
           but has lots of clean ideas, and you can write really short code in
	...

5/15    I'd like to start doing AI programming again. What is a good,
        free common lisp distribution? I am using Max OS X. -tia
        \_ cmucl.  The sbcl fork runs on Darwin. -- ilyas
           \_ sbcl forked some time ago and is not really the same as cmucl
              anymore.  Franz's Allegro (originated from CS dept at Cal) is
              either free or costs a fortune, depending on the license.  Also
	...

5/11    To FP activists on the motd, if currying is such a great idea, why
        it's not implemented symmetrically in say Caml?  It seems more
        natural to treat the arguments of a function more symmetrically.
        \_ If by 'symmetric' you mean that if, for example, I have a function
           f of two arguments a and b, I should be able to curry on either
           a or b, then Ocaml does this using labeled arguments.  Caml does
	...

4/16    So, here's a question.  I'm learning Python, and it seems to me that it
        includes a lot of the power of Scheme or Lips, with out the wierdness.
        Would Python make a better introduction to CS language than Scheme?
        \_ Dunno, why don't you just ask Ping, he taught a 61A style course
           in python at Cal.  He claims it was good.  I still haven't yet
           found a good dollar Return on Investment for the time I spent
	...

2/27    In perl, say I have a @list of strings, how do I print the first
        character of those stings, concatinated? For example, if @list is
        ['hello','world',123], I want an output of hw1. I can do a loop,
        substr, and the .= operator, but it looks lame...
        \_ what's wrong with just doing what works?
        \_ TMTOWTDIT, but foreach $item (@array) { print substr($item,0,1) }
	...

4/9     Does anyone here use the Python language on a regular basis?  What do
        you use it for?  What is your opinion of it as a language?
        \_ ML >> Perl >> Python.
           \_ Tcl >> ML >> ... >> PHP
                \_ I've seen Python, PHP, Perl, and TCL.  3 of 4 are crap.
                   Got a link for ML?  I can decide for myself.
	...

3/13    does anyone happen to know when/where the python infosession
        will be on thursday?  thank you.
        \_ Perl >> python
           \_ ML >> Perl >> python
              \_ ML >> prolog >> Perl >> python
              \_ yermom >> ML >> Perl >> python >> ilyasmom
	...

8/21    Wanna teach programming language to my cousin (10 year old). Should
        I teach LISP or Java first? Also, is it advisable to teach more than
        one language at a time?
        \_ http://www.toontalk.com  -mogul
        \_ Get a Mac, have 'em try HyperCard. When they get bored with that,
           Pascal. I tried this, and it was fun -brg
	...

6/20    I have a variable inside a struct.  I want to be able to initialize
        that variable ONCE and not write to it again.  Any subsequent writes
        should not be permitted.  Is there a way to do that in C?  I know
        about "const int foo = 5;" but the value I need to pass in is dynamic
        and happens at runtime.  Declaring a variable as const doesn't let
        me assign anything to it at all.  Thanks.
	...