5 ms·

LISP has been a system programming language. Still is. People just don't think about it much but forget that for a time, LISP was the shit in computer science,

by zaarn 7y ago

LISP has been a system programming language. Still is. People just don't think about it much but forget that for a time, LISP was the shit in computer science, we invented half of the modern desktop on LISP machines!

pkaye 7y ago
So Douglas Engelbart did all his work in LISP?
- zaarn 7y ago
  Since he did AI work in the 50's, probably a lot of his work was written in LISP or IPL, which had many of the concepts that LISP later used. Most of his high-profile inventions (Computer mice, Hypertext, Interactive Computers) were first commercialized on LISP machines in the 80s. LISP Machines also pioneered some other concepts such as windowing ystems, graphic rendering, modern networking, garbage collection, etc. There is a fun little demo on youtube here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk . That shows off a LISP machine roughly as it was written in the 80s/90s.
  - gwern 7y ago
    Not sure why you'd guess that since Lisp machines weren't a thing in the 1950s. His NLS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLS_(computer_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLS_(computer_system) was actually written in something rather different, TREE-META https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TREE-META https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TREE-META I'm not entirely sure what you would call their programming languages, but they definitely weren't Lisps.
farisjarrah 7y ago
Didn't NASA write a bunch of software for the space shuttles in LISP?
- mruts 7y ago
  Yeah, it got placed by C by the suits though. When you think about it, Lisp is perfect for their use cases. Pushing patches live without rebooting and easy modification of a running system image while running.
  - behnamoh 7y ago
    Yep, as mentioned in the links in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19952974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19952974
    - lispm 7y ago
      The remote agent was not Lisp software for Space Shuttles. Remote Agent was a part of the Deep Space 1 space mission...
  - lispm 7y ago
    ' their use cases.' What use cases? There were a lot of Lisp systems for Space Shuttles which were not needing such a feature. Examples: 'Automating Planning and Scheduling of Shuttle Payload Operation' http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.96.6222&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.96.... 'The objective of EMPRESS (expert mission planning and replanning scheduling system) is to support the planning and scheduling required to prepare science and application payloads for flight aboard the US Space Shuttle. EMPRESS was designed and implemented in Zetalisp on a 3600 series Symbolics LISP machine. Initially, EMPRESS was built as a concept demonstration system.' https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/17369 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/17369 'NASA used Symbolics' high-definition technology to analyze HDTV video images of the Discovery launch in real-time. This high-definition system enabled NASA engineers to get an instant replay of critical launch systems.' ftp://ftp.ai.sri.com/pub/mailing-lists/slug/900531/msg00199.html 'An Intelligent Training System for Flight Controllers Space Shuttle' http://www.aaai.org/Papers/IAAI/1989/IAAI89-021.pdf http://www.aaai.org/Papers/IAAI/1989/IAAI89-021.pdf and so on...
pmiller2 7y ago
I was under the impression that Smalltalk contributed more to what we think of as “the modern desktop” than LISP. If anyone has the real story, I’d love to hear it.
- aidenn0 7y ago
  I don't have the real story, but there was a lot of cross-pollination between smalltalk and lisp. It can be challenging to determine which things originated where sometimes. IMO a lot of it is just that all of the ingredients for a modern desktop were there for anyone with 10s of thousands of dollars of hardware, so there was both cross-pollination as well as parallel evolution of ideas. The invention of the sewing machine is kind of like this; there was a point at which we were very close to being able to make a sewing machine, and several people solved a subset of the problems; the union of that subset gave us a sewing machine, so singling out a single inventor is somewhat non-sensical. Most lisp machines were specifically targeted at developers while smalltalk at Xerox was more targeted at office productivity. Interestingly enough Xerox hired the BBN team that made lisp machines, and the Xerox star was made to run lisp as well.
  - flavio81 7y ago
    >I don't have the real story, but there was a lot of cross-pollination between smalltalk and lisp. Smalltalk was influenced by Lisp, and in turn, Smalltalk influenced the subsequent Lisp systems; that's where OOP support appeared in Lisp, first with LOOPS and MIT Flavors, ultimately with CLOS on ANSI Common Lisp. Common Lisp also is "image-based development", just like Smalltalk. This is a direct ST influence.
    - lispm 7y ago
      > Common Lisp also is "image-based development", just like Smalltalk. This is a direct ST influence. Lisp from the early 60s used already images. It went from there to Smalltalk.
      - flavio81 7y ago

by zaarn 7y ago

pkaye 7y ago

So Douglas Engelbart did all his work in LISP?

zaarn 7y ago
Since he did AI work in the 50's, probably a lot of his work was written in LISP or IPL, which had many of the concepts that LISP later used. Most of his high-profile inventions (Computer mice, Hypertext, Interactive Computers) were first commercialized on LISP machines in the 80s. LISP Machines also pioneered some other concepts such as windowing ystems, graphic rendering, modern networking, garbage collection, etc. There is a fun little demo on youtube here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-YnLpLgtk . That shows off a LISP machine roughly as it was written in the 80s/90s.
- gwern 7y ago
  Not sure why you'd guess that since Lisp machines weren't a thing in the 1950s. His NLS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLS_(computer_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLS_(computer_system) was actually written in something rather different, TREE-META https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TREE-META https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TREE-META I'm not entirely sure what you would call their programming languages, but they definitely weren't Lisps.

farisjarrah 7y ago

Didn't NASA write a bunch of software for the space shuttles in LISP?

mruts 7y ago
Yeah, it got placed by C by the suits though. When you think about it, Lisp is perfect for their use cases. Pushing patches live without rebooting and easy modification of a running system image while running.
- behnamoh 7y ago
  Yep, as mentioned in the links in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19952974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19952974
  - lispm 7y ago
    The remote agent was not Lisp software for Space Shuttles. Remote Agent was a part of the Deep Space 1 space mission...
- lispm 7y ago
  ' their use cases.' What use cases? There were a lot of Lisp systems for Space Shuttles which were not needing such a feature. Examples: 'Automating Planning and Scheduling of Shuttle Payload Operation' http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.96.6222&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.96.... 'The objective of EMPRESS (expert mission planning and replanning scheduling system) is to support the planning and scheduling required to prepare science and application payloads for flight aboard the US Space Shuttle. EMPRESS was designed and implemented in Zetalisp on a 3600 series Symbolics LISP machine. Initially, EMPRESS was built as a concept demonstration system.' https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/17369 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/17369 'NASA used Symbolics' high-definition technology to analyze HDTV video images of the Discovery launch in real-time. This high-definition system enabled NASA engineers to get an instant replay of critical launch systems.' ftp://ftp.ai.sri.com/pub/mailing-lists/slug/900531/msg00199.html 'An Intelligent Training System for Flight Controllers Space Shuttle' http://www.aaai.org/Papers/IAAI/1989/IAAI89-021.pdf http://www.aaai.org/Papers/IAAI/1989/IAAI89-021.pdf and so on...

pmiller2 7y ago

I was under the impression that Smalltalk contributed more to what we think of as “the modern desktop” than LISP. If anyone has the real story, I’d love to hear it.

aidenn0 7y ago
I don't have the real story, but there was a lot of cross-pollination between smalltalk and lisp. It can be challenging to determine which things originated where sometimes. IMO a lot of it is just that all of the ingredients for a modern desktop were there for anyone with 10s of thousands of dollars of hardware, so there was both cross-pollination as well as parallel evolution of ideas. The invention of the sewing machine is kind of like this; there was a point at which we were very close to being able to make a sewing machine, and several people solved a subset of the problems; the union of that subset gave us a sewing machine, so singling out a single inventor is somewhat non-sensical. Most lisp machines were specifically targeted at developers while smalltalk at Xerox was more targeted at office productivity. Interestingly enough Xerox hired the BBN team that made lisp machines, and the Xerox star was made to run lisp as well.
- flavio81 7y ago
  >I don't have the real story, but there was a lot of cross-pollination between smalltalk and lisp. Smalltalk was influenced by Lisp, and in turn, Smalltalk influenced the subsequent Lisp systems; that's where OOP support appeared in Lisp, first with LOOPS and MIT Flavors, ultimately with CLOS on ANSI Common Lisp. Common Lisp also is "image-based development", just like Smalltalk. This is a direct ST influence.
  - lispm 7y ago
    > Common Lisp also is "image-based development", just like Smalltalk. This is a direct ST influence. Lisp from the early 60s used already images. It went from there to Smalltalk.
    - flavio81 7y ago