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I'm trying to figure out what specific characteristics give it the kind of reputation it has. Good observation about Lisp vs. Smalltalk, by the way. (I also wo

I'm trying to figure out what specific characteristics give it the kind of reputation it has. Good observation about Lisp vs. Smalltalk, by the way. (I also wonder why Smalltalk isn't more popular...)

gruseom 18y ago
Ok, here I think you need to look at history rather than the languages themselves. Once Lisp (and Smalltalk, for different reasons) became branded as failures, that reputation was fixed in 90+% of people's minds, and it remains so. This is all the more entrenched because of the bias in favor of the newest things in computing. For most people, that a 40-year old failure might be better than something new and popular just isn't possible.
- silentbicycle 18y ago
  So, you think it's a legacy of the AI winter?
  - gruseom 18y ago
    Sure, among other things (like "it's too slow").
    - abstractbill 18y ago
      That view is remarkably well entrenched. On the last team I worked in, before coming to JTV, we were talking about the big Java project we were working on. I said if I had my way it would have been written in Common Lisp. Many on the team thought that was hilarious. One guy's response was "yeah, maybe if we had a supercomputer!"
      - silentbicycle 18y ago
        For what its worth, that's probably a pretty good sign that they don't really understand what makes languages slow. (Or that they in "cheap shot" mode.)
    - kxt 18y ago
      Weird, as I was browsing the language shootout, I got the impression that SBCL produces damn fast code, in most cases comparable to the code emited by GCC or Java 6. http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/debian/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=sbcl&lang2=java http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/debian/benchmark.php?test=...
      - gruseom 18y ago
        Yeah, that's the point. It's damn fast now. The "too slow" meme is from decades ago.
      - igouy 18y ago
        Notice that you're looking at SBCL 0.9.16 Notice that there are more up-to-date measurements available from the homepage http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/

gruseom 18y ago

Ok, here I think you need to look at history rather than the languages themselves. Once Lisp (and Smalltalk, for different reasons) became branded as failures, that reputation was fixed in 90+% of people's minds, and it remains so. This is all the more entrenched because of the bias in favor of the newest things in computing. For most people, that a 40-year old failure might be better than something new and popular just isn't possible.

silentbicycle 18y ago
So, you think it's a legacy of the AI winter?
- gruseom 18y ago
  Sure, among other things (like "it's too slow").
  - abstractbill 18y ago
    That view is remarkably well entrenched. On the last team I worked in, before coming to JTV, we were talking about the big Java project we were working on. I said if I had my way it would have been written in Common Lisp. Many on the team thought that was hilarious. One guy's response was "yeah, maybe if we had a supercomputer!"
    - silentbicycle 18y ago
      For what its worth, that's probably a pretty good sign that they don't really understand what makes languages slow. (Or that they in "cheap shot" mode.)
  - kxt 18y ago
    Weird, as I was browsing the language shootout, I got the impression that SBCL produces damn fast code, in most cases comparable to the code emited by GCC or Java 6. http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/debian/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=sbcl&lang2=java http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/debian/benchmark.php?test=...
    - gruseom 18y ago
      Yeah, that's the point. It's damn fast now. The "too slow" meme is from decades ago.
    - igouy 18y ago
      Notice that you're looking at SBCL 0.9.16 Notice that there are more up-to-date measurements available from the homepage http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/