Lambda the Ultimate

The idea of programming-language determinism has some truth to it, but is overrated. Because we are often tackling the same problems in C, Perl, Scheme, Smalltalk, and so on, we can usually find a way to analyze them and code solutions using common designs. Sometimes the features of a particular language make a particular solution much more elegant and comprehensible, and in that case form influences content. But these languages have enough common ground that they can share many designs. C may have pre-increment and post-increment operators, but you can still add 1 to a variable in any language that supports variables.

I agree with some of the style tips the author gives, but I think understanding the different abstraction facilities different languages offer is even more important for writing readable and maintainable code.

Microsoft has decided not to ship a client-side XQuery implementation in the final version of .NET 2.0 Framework ("Whidbey")....

However, we will be shipping a subset of XQuery in SQL Server ("Yukon") 2005. The reason for this is the new native XML datatype in SQL Server 2005. Microsoft recommends XQuery as the way to re-shape, query, and modify XML data within SQL Server 2005.

Reminds me of this discussion ;-)

Perhaps this can be made part of a FAQ.

There are many abbreviations used on LTU which are neither obvious, nor part of the computer science lexicon. To aid new readers, I propose a glossary of such.

To start off the list:

CTM: Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming by PVR
PVR: Peter van Roy
LTU: Lambda the Ultimate (in case there was any doubt)
SICP: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman

Lots more, I'm sure... please add to the list.