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I often think it's because Common Lisp was one of the last pre-web languages to be designed (or standardised anyway). Newer languages like Java/Javascript/Cloju

by adwf 10y ago

I often think it's because Common Lisp was one of the last pre-web languages to be designed (or standardised anyway). Newer languages like Java/Javascript/Clojure/etc. had the advantage of being able to build a strong community on the web. Whereas Lisp was just on its way out as the web was rising. The hardware and the long standardisation process didn't help either. That, combined with it being both an old and a new language, meant that when the spec was done there wasn't the excitement you get with a new language like Python or Clojure. It missed the boat with building a web community and missed again in building hype. However, Norvig is completely correct in saying that just because the CL language itself may not have taken off, doesn't mean the ideas didn't make it everywhere.

paddy_m 10y ago
Perl and python, and c++. Perl especially was influenced by newsgroups, so maybe that doesn't count.
- adwf 10y ago
  Yeah, but they arose as the web was starting in the 90s. Whereas Lisp had been around since the 50's. The standardisation effort wasn't the development of an exciting new language, just the finalisation of an old one.
hga 10y ago
There's also the factor that the over promising of what expert systems and AI in general could do that lead to the AI Winter were conveniently blamed on Lisp, seeing as how it couldn't have been simple failures to execute, or execute the impossible. Or so goes one version of the Official Story, I wasn't really a witness to more than the beginning of that, when they were grossly over-hyped. Or solved the wrong problem, my favorite example there being DEC's configuration -> part numbers to order expert system. Sun made it simple, at the lowest level of a workstation, the major choices of the sort DEC was optimizing came down to which keyboard and power cord you ordered to fix your country's standards.

by adwf 10y ago

paddy_m 10y ago

Perl and python, and c++. Perl especially was influenced by newsgroups, so maybe that doesn't count.

adwf 10y ago
Yeah, but they arose as the web was starting in the 90s. Whereas Lisp had been around since the 50's. The standardisation effort wasn't the development of an exciting new language, just the finalisation of an old one.

hga 10y ago

There's also the factor that the over promising of what expert systems and AI in general could do that lead to the AI Winter were conveniently blamed on Lisp, seeing as how it couldn't have been simple failures to execute, or execute the impossible. Or so goes one version of the Official Story, I wasn't really a witness to more than the beginning of that, when they were grossly over-hyped. Or solved the wrong problem, my favorite example there being DEC's configuration -> part numbers to order expert system. Sun made it simple, at the lowest level of a workstation, the major choices of the sort DEC was optimizing came down to which keyboard and power cord you ordered to fix your country's standards.