3 ms·

Yeah, this applies to all that old Lisp features.

by stiGGG 8y ago

_delirium 8y ago
I think of full-featured pattern matching as a fairly recent addition even to Lisp. Lisp has had some pattern-matching constructs forever of course (cond, destructuring-bind, Norvig's sexp matcher from PAIP [1], etc.). But it's only with the more recent emergence of optima [2] as a de-facto standard that it now has really good pattern matching. It was probably the #1 thing I missed in Lisp, after having used ML a bit, until optima came along. [1] https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp/blob/master/lisp/patmatch.lisp https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp/blob/master/lisp/patmatc... [2] https://github.com/m2ym/optima https://github.com/m2ym/optima
- lispm 8y ago
  The first embedded language for programming with patterns for Lisp was implemented 1962 by Daniel Bobrow. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6106 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6106
masklinn 8y ago
AFAIK pattern-matching is not a historical Lisp feature, it's usually been limited to simple destructuring. In the modern acception of tree patterns (as opposed to text patterns aka regular expressions), I guess it comes from ML (and possibly prolog but prolog's unification goes even further?): it doesn't look like ISWIM had tree patterns and I can't find older references.
- lispm 8y ago
  In Lisp pattern-based programming has been first implemented in 1962 in by D.Bobrow (METEOR). From then on there are many implementations of pattern matching in Lisp based software, from Planner, to rule-based systems, LISP70 (Tesler, ...)...
  - Roboprog 8y ago
    This makes me sad. As somebody who started a CS degree back in the early 80s (finishing in the late 80s), and who had a few glimpses of languages which didn’t suck, the switch down to “everything is an 8086 running C code, if not x86 assembler” was an incredibly destructive event in this industry. I was going to specialize in AI in my major, but I guess it was about 25 years too early. But that’s another tangent.
- kbp 8y ago
  > AFAIK pattern-matching is not a historical Lisp feature Aside from full packages like what lispm mentioned, implementing pattern matching (and later, full Prolog-style unification) in Lisp is a very common exercise in beginner Lisp textbooks, going back decades.
lmm 8y ago
I'd say it's less about Lisp and more that the ML lineage is finally getting its day in the sun (and not before time).

Yeah, this applies to all that old Lisp features.

by stiGGG 8y ago

Yeah, this applies to all that old Lisp features.

I think of full-featured pattern matching as a fairly recent addition even to Lisp. Lisp has had some pattern-matching constructs forever of course (cond, destructuring-bind, Norvig's sexp matcher from PAIP [1], etc.). But it's only with the more recent emergence of optima [2] as a de-facto standard that it now has really good pattern matching. It was probably the #1 thing I missed in Lisp, after having used ML a bit, until optima came along. [1] https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp/blob/master/lisp/patmatch.lisp https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp/blob/master/lisp/patmatc... [2] https://github.com/m2ym/optima https://github.com/m2ym/optima

lispm 8y ago
The first embedded language for programming with patterns for Lisp was implemented 1962 by Daniel Bobrow. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6106 https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6106

masklinn 8y ago

AFAIK pattern-matching is not a historical Lisp feature, it's usually been limited to simple destructuring. In the modern acception of tree patterns (as opposed to text patterns aka regular expressions), I guess it comes from ML (and possibly prolog but prolog's unification goes even further?): it doesn't look like ISWIM had tree patterns and I can't find older references.

lispm 8y ago
In Lisp pattern-based programming has been first implemented in 1962 in by D.Bobrow (METEOR). From then on there are many implementations of pattern matching in Lisp based software, from Planner, to rule-based systems, LISP70 (Tesler, ...)...
- Roboprog 8y ago
  This makes me sad. As somebody who started a CS degree back in the early 80s (finishing in the late 80s), and who had a few glimpses of languages which didn’t suck, the switch down to “everything is an 8086 running C code, if not x86 assembler” was an incredibly destructive event in this industry. I was going to specialize in AI in my major, but I guess it was about 25 years too early. But that’s another tangent.
kbp 8y ago
> AFAIK pattern-matching is not a historical Lisp feature Aside from full packages like what lispm mentioned, implementing pattern matching (and later, full Prolog-style unification) in Lisp is a very common exercise in beginner Lisp textbooks, going back decades.

lmm 8y ago

I'd say it's less about Lisp and more that the ML lineage is finally getting its day in the sun (and not before time).