Smalltalk, Lisp, Bash: Three Interesting Languages
summary
Argues each language reduces to a tiny set of primitives and then shows how control flow is actually built: Smalltalk implements conditionals by defining methods on Boolean objects so objects classes message passing blocks do the work; Lisp needs macros because eager evaluation prevents a plain function from short-circuiting so functions macros special forms rewrite code before evaluation; shell composes programs via commands, exit statuses and redirected streams and even the familiar [ is literally the test command compiled with different names; includes an interactive hangman implemented in bash.
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chapters (6)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:33Smalltalk principles
- 7:48Lisp functions and macros
- 14:54Bash commands and logic
- 21:03Language comparison
- 23:32Q&A and helicopter physics
