4 ms·

Be glad the author of a major programming language has the decency to read Levine and the first 3 chapters of the dragon book? O industrial PL designers, how e

by mahmud 17y ago

Be glad the author of a major programming language has the decency to read Levine and the first 3 chapters of the dragon book? O industrial PL designers, how easily we let you off the hook. I think the guy who had the misfortune to create newLisp caught more flack than Guido, Matz and Larry combined.

jrockway 17y ago
If you want a lot of people to hate your language, name it "somethingLisp". The CL people will hate you because it's not CL, the Scheme people will hate you because it's not Scheme, and everyone else will hate you because it has parentheses.
- mahmud 17y ago
  ISLisp. Find anyone who hates it :-) This is another standardized Lisp that even Common Lispers and Schemers respect. The ISLispers were the Trotskyists persecuted by the DoD backed CL Stalinist politburo. They had a beautiful Lisp that reconciled all the Lisp differences without sacrificing good taste. However, it was a high-level design that left too many details to the whims of implementers, and would have been impossible to stay compatible to without active and deliberate cooperation. There you have it. And I must go now to board a chopper to to an Alaskan rehab/work program for my reactionary accusations against the U.S. Department of Defense, and the venerable X3J13 ;-)
  - eru 17y ago
    EuLisp may have a similar story?
    - mahmud 17y ago
      Yes; ISLisp was an international effort (EU + JP + some U.S. delegates) while EuLisp was purely European (France and UK.) Also, EuLisp is a more divergent dialect, and even more ambitious than common lisp; it had ML style modules, continuations via let/cc, generic LAMBDA (yes, first class anonymous methods!) full support for TCO and other goodies. EuLisp was an ideological successor to LeLisp (which was ancient and fugly) and I consider both the academic dabblings of one Christian Quinnec, Lisp designer extraordinaire.

by mahmud 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago

If you want a lot of people to hate your language, name it "somethingLisp". The CL people will hate you because it's not CL, the Scheme people will hate you because it's not Scheme, and everyone else will hate you because it has parentheses.

mahmud 17y ago
ISLisp. Find anyone who hates it :-) This is another standardized Lisp that even Common Lispers and Schemers respect. The ISLispers were the Trotskyists persecuted by the DoD backed CL Stalinist politburo. They had a beautiful Lisp that reconciled all the Lisp differences without sacrificing good taste. However, it was a high-level design that left too many details to the whims of implementers, and would have been impossible to stay compatible to without active and deliberate cooperation. There you have it. And I must go now to board a chopper to to an Alaskan rehab/work program for my reactionary accusations against the U.S. Department of Defense, and the venerable X3J13 ;-)
- eru 17y ago
  EuLisp may have a similar story?
  - mahmud 17y ago
    Yes; ISLisp was an international effort (EU + JP + some U.S. delegates) while EuLisp was purely European (France and UK.) Also, EuLisp is a more divergent dialect, and even more ambitious than common lisp; it had ML style modules, continuations via let/cc, generic LAMBDA (yes, first class anonymous methods!) full support for TCO and other goodies. EuLisp was an ideological successor to LeLisp (which was ancient and fugly) and I consider both the academic dabblings of one Christian Quinnec, Lisp designer extraordinaire.