4 ms·

Why would I call a 'new' language 'Lisp' when it can't run a single line of Lisp code from the past 50 years? Give it a different name. Not every random langua

• weland 11y ago
  It's very much a Lisp dialect in the sense of McCarthy's Lisp. There is some life beyond Common Lisp :).
  • lispm 11y ago
    It isn't. Newlisp shares that not much with McCarthy's Lisp. newlisp does not even have linked lists, it has a different evaluation model, ..., no GC. Languages like Standard Lisp, Franz Lisp, ISLisp, Eulisp, Emacs Lisp, Visual Lisp are in the Lisp tradition and share a core language. newlisp is a different language. Call it ParenthesesScript, ContextScript or something like that.
    • weland 11y ago
      > does not even have linked lists Conses are different in newlisp, but it certainly does have linked lists: > In newLISP, there are no dotted pairs. Instead, each newLISP cell contains one object and a pointer to another object if the cell is part of a list. > different evaluation model That one is true, yes. > no GC No, but it implements McCarthy's original intent through the ORO scheme. NewLisp's ORO thing is very annoying if you ask me, but it does its job; it achieves the same thing that McCarthy mentioned in his paper: "This process [...] is more convenient for the programmer than a system in which he has to keep track of and erase unwanted lists. Its efficiency depends upon not coming close to exhausting the available memory with accessible lists etc." Let's not delude ourselves here. NewLisp is not necessarily one of the "better" Lisp implementations, but it has S-expressions, Scheme-like function application and automatic memory management. I think that's reason enough to call it SomethingLisp.
      • lispm 11y ago
        > Conses are different in newlisp, but it certainly does have linked lists These are different. newlisp seems to have a list cell, which then points to linked content cells. A mechanism which is different from any other Lisp dialect.
    • dragonwriter 11y ago
      > newlisp does not even have linked lists No, it does. Linked list are the fundamental data structure; the difference with respect to linked list from other lisps is, in fact, that in newLisp linked lists are fundamental, not just one application of cons cells, so you can't have a cons cell where cdr is not a proper list.
• hellofunk 11y ago
  99% of the time, the word "lisp" does not mean "Common Lisp" specifically. When you mean Common Lisp, you say Common Lisp. When you mean any language in the family of lisp languages, you say lisp. This includes hundreds of languages.
  • junke 11y ago
    99% of the time? Common.
    • hellofunk 11y ago
      heh, don't confuse the readers
      • tjr 11y ago
        It's not so much the readers we need to be concerned about here, but the evaluators.
        • hellofunk 11y ago
          good one
  • lispm 11y ago
    Ever heard of Lisp 1.5, UCI Lisp, MacLisp, ISLisp, New Implementation of Lisp, Lisp Machine Lisp, Standard Lisp ,Franz Lisp, Emacs Lisp, ISLisp, Autolisp, Visual Lisp, and many many other Lisp dialects? Notice something? These all have Lisp in their name. They all share a core language. None of those is Common Lisp, but Common Lisp is directly related to them, since it also shares the same core language. Common Lisp can easily run Lisp code from 50 years ago. Newlisp can't.
    • hellofunk 11y ago
      To be honest, I'm not sure what point you are making. But I know that my point still stands.