User:Lhignight

My Favorite Languages
Language	Proficiency
BASIC	Moderate (Rusty)
C	Skilled
C++	Moderate (Rusty)
C sharp	Skilled
Clojure	Curious (Learning)
Common Lisp	Skilled
Emacs Lisp	Moderate
F#	Curious
Haskell	Novice (Learning)
Java	Skilled
Mathematica	Novice (Learning)
Matlab	Moderate
Prolog	Novice (Learning)
Python	Moderate
R	Skilled
SQL	Skilled
UNIX Shell	Moderate

My Contributions
Task	Language	Contribution	Notes
Casting out nines	Common Lisp	First contributor	I used a macro to ensure that the filter would be inlined Possible implementations: C, C#, Java, Haskell, R
Compound data type	Common Lisp	First contributor	I demonstrate how the defstruct macro creates a default constructor w/ accessor functions for each slot I should add some comments on integration with the printer and a list iteration example like F# The task description should include easy, medium, and hard variations: construction, data typing, assignment, printing, equality Use the point type w/ something like the Haversine formula Possible changes: C# should include more output; Haskell better comments; R better comments & examples
Function composition	Common Lisp	Added the compose macro	I wrote the compose macro for a couple of reasons: To provide an elegant means of function composition w/ three or more functions To hide funcall which is a by-product of CL being a Lisp-2 and somewhat inelegant The most elegant solutions: Haskell, Mathematica, OCaml, Scheme, and Common Lisp (via macro-cheating) The Ada implementation is practically a 'proof' that over-use of syntax inevitably leads to inelegant code Let's be realistic... Nobody has ever done function composition at work in C, C++, Obj-C, C# or Java. Ever.
Guess the number	Common Lisp	First contributor	The C, C++ and R versions don't appear to be very robust Why does the Java version use Math.random, then caste to an int, instead of using java.util.Random
Guess the number/With feedback	Common Lisp	First contributor	The current task lacks any meaningful difference from the original. Possible change: require implementations to extend the Guess the number code in order to demonstrate how each language handles changes in requirements, modularity, etc.
Haversine formula	Common Lisp	First contributor	I really appreciate how elegantly the Haskell distRad function 'destructures' function parameters I might add a CL implementation that demonstrates the destructing-bind macro A version of this task using points in multiple higher-dimensions would be interesting The current task that would probably benefit from some additional examples and/or unit tests There should probably be some kind of automated unit test task
Higher-order functions	Common Lisp	Added the CL library examples	This is another task that would really benefit from more concrete task examples. Possible changes: Clojure, Haskell & Scheme should have better comments and examples "A function is just a value that wants arguments" ... really?!
Kaprekar numbers	Common Lisp	Added a 2nd implementation	Reasons for the addition: The original implementation didn't take advantage of several Lisp forms which improve readability The new version had significantly better performance However, the new version is limited to base 10 numbers
Pancake sort	Common Lisp	First contributor	This is another task that would benefit from multiple versions: Easy - implement the 2n-3 pancake sort algorithm Medium - implement the 5/3*n pancake sort algorithm Hard - implement the 18/11*n pancake sort algorithm I'm considering improving the current code
S-Expressions	Common Lisp	Replaced the original implementation	I consider this to be my best contribution: The parser is 5 SLOC (even w/ having to parse square brackets); The writer is ~20 SLOC By comparison, the Java parser consists of 6 classes and ~200 SLOC Few languages have contributions for the harder writing S-Expressions tasks