5 ms·

History of Lisp (1979) [pdf]

101 points by alokrai 6y ago

mtreis86 6y ago
I would really like to see an updated history that takes up where this left off. Highlights of the past 40 years: the formation of the Common Lisp specification, the role of Lisps in AI, Symbolics vs Lisp Machines Inc, their eventual demise in the AI winter, continued use in DSLs like Autocad and Emacs, and the small but growing resurgence in interest.
- lispm 6y ago
  Here you go for a technical history https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf
- Rochus 6y ago
  Some of it is described here: https://ai.stanford.edu/~nilsson/QAI/qai.pdf https://ai.stanford.edu/~nilsson/QAI/qai.pdf (THE QUEST FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - A HISTORY OF IDEAS AND ACHIEVEMENTS)
  - pinewurst 6y ago
    This is a really good book - I bought the Print version a few years ago.
- pinewurst 6y ago
  HP Newquist, The Brain Makers from 1994. It matches my memories of the last AI boom quite well.
leoc 6y ago
Reposting my earlier comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10502434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10502434 : > Herbert Stoyan's historical work on early Lisp http://www.mcjones.org/dustydecks/archives/2010/07/29/185/ http://www.mcjones.org/dustydecks/archives/2010/07/29/185/ https://web.archive.org/web/20050617031004/http://www8.infor.. https://web.archive.org/web/20050617031004/http://www8.infor.... is probably worth reading if one is seriously interested. (I haven't read much of it myself yet.) McCarthy praised Stoyan's work as better than his own 1979 HOPL paper ( http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/lisp.html http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/lisp.html ): "Stoyan's reading of the early LISP documents gives a more accurate picture than my own memories turned out to have given." http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/ http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/ > (As a side-note, I'm pretty sure that the broken, Wayback-beating link to "Lisp references according to Miller" on McCarthy's page is to this http://www.ai.sri.com/~delacaze/alu-site/alu/table/Lisp-Hist.. http://www.ai.sri.com/~delacaze/alu-site/alu/table/Lisp-Hist.... document by Kent Pitman and Brad Miller (see http://www.ai.sri.com/~delacaze/alu-site/alu/table/history.h.. http://www.ai.sri.com/~delacaze/alu-site/alu/table/history.h.... ).)
eql5 6y ago
BTW, if you want to learn/experiment with Common Lisp on mobile, there's a new horse in town ("new" at least for iOS): http://cl-repl.org http://cl-repl.org (Sorry for the shameless plug, wouldn't have mentioned it if it weren't both free and open source).
- lisper 6y ago
  Looks very cool, but where is the source?
  - eql5 6y ago
    Voila! (it's under 'examples/REPL'): https://gitlab.com/eql https://gitlab.com/eql
freefriedrice 6y ago
I remember being exposed to LISP in the late 80's after coming from Pascal and COBOL in my CS101 (C was a 200-level class.) It was such a complete mindf*ck. After learning procedural language patterns, switching to LISP uprooted everything, and in some cases the patterns were already burned in. In hindsight, I think it makes more sense to learn LISP first, and THEN procedural languages since the latter is a subset of LISP. When C++ appeared, my first thought was, "Hey, someone made C kinda act like LISP/CLOS."
dang 6y ago
See also 2013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5825698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5825698 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17846522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17846522 Others?

101 points by alokrai 6y ago

I would really like to see an updated history that takes up where this left off. Highlights of the past 40 years: the formation of the Common Lisp specification, the role of Lisps in AI, Symbolics vs Lisp Machines Inc, their eventual demise in the AI winter, continued use in DSLs like Autocad and Emacs, and the small but growing resurgence in interest.

lispm 6y ago
Here you go for a technical history https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf
Rochus 6y ago
Some of it is described here: https://ai.stanford.edu/~nilsson/QAI/qai.pdf https://ai.stanford.edu/~nilsson/QAI/qai.pdf (THE QUEST FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - A HISTORY OF IDEAS AND ACHIEVEMENTS)
- pinewurst 6y ago
  This is a really good book - I bought the Print version a few years ago.
pinewurst 6y ago
HP Newquist, The Brain Makers from 1994. It matches my memories of the last AI boom quite well.

leoc 6y ago

Reposting my earlier comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10502434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10502434 : > Herbert Stoyan's historical work on early Lisp http://www.mcjones.org/dustydecks/archives/2010/07/29/185/ http://www.mcjones.org/dustydecks/archives/2010/07/29/185/ https://web.archive.org/web/20050617031004/http://www8.infor.. https://web.archive.org/web/20050617031004/http://www8.infor.... is probably worth reading if one is seriously interested. (I haven't read much of it myself yet.) McCarthy praised Stoyan's work as better than his own 1979 HOPL paper ( http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/lisp.html http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/lisp.html ): "Stoyan's reading of the early LISP documents gives a more accurate picture than my own memories turned out to have given." http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/ http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/ > (As a side-note, I'm pretty sure that the broken, Wayback-beating link to "Lisp references according to Miller" on McCarthy's page is to this http://www.ai.sri.com/~delacaze/alu-site/alu/table/Lisp-Hist.. http://www.ai.sri.com/~delacaze/alu-site/alu/table/Lisp-Hist.... document by Kent Pitman and Brad Miller (see http://www.ai.sri.com/~delacaze/alu-site/alu/table/history.h.. http://www.ai.sri.com/~delacaze/alu-site/alu/table/history.h.... ).)

eql5 6y ago

BTW, if you want to learn/experiment with Common Lisp on mobile, there's a new horse in town ("new" at least for iOS): http://cl-repl.org http://cl-repl.org (Sorry for the shameless plug, wouldn't have mentioned it if it weren't both free and open source).

lisper 6y ago
Looks very cool, but where is the source?
- eql5 6y ago
  Voila! (it's under 'examples/REPL'): https://gitlab.com/eql https://gitlab.com/eql

freefriedrice 6y ago

I remember being exposed to LISP in the late 80's after coming from Pascal and COBOL in my CS101 (C was a 200-level class.) It was such a complete mindf*ck. After learning procedural language patterns, switching to LISP uprooted everything, and in some cases the patterns were already burned in. In hindsight, I think it makes more sense to learn LISP first, and THEN procedural languages since the latter is a subset of LISP. When C++ appeared, my first thought was, "Hey, someone made C kinda act like LISP/CLOS."

dang 6y ago

See also 2013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5825698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5825698 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17846522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17846522 Others?