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> rather than fiddling with very old environments. I worked on Symbolics machines (rms, please forgive me). I even fixed a bunch of the wire-wrapped original

> rather than fiddling with very old environments. I worked on Symbolics machines (rms, please forgive me). I even fixed a bunch of the wire-wrapped original LMs from before Symbolics. I remember it being earth-shattering at the time (self-documenting? whoa) but I confess I'm curious how much was just the transition from TOPS-20 etc to a completely new single-user environment. All stuff from the dark ages really. I'd probably fire it up out of nostalgia if nothing else. BTW: Dan Weinreb's post ("Why did symbolics fail?" linked in the OP) has migrated to here: http://danweinreb.org/blog/why-did-symbolics-fail http://danweinreb.org/blog/why-did-symbolics-fail

jf 15y ago
I'm 29. The first used Genera a few years ago. The "Help" button the Symbolics machines blew me away. I've used software with great built-in help. It's impressive to see it system-wide. Another thing that I still find really impressive is how (aside from the bootloader) all of Genera is written in Lisp and can be edited, live, while the system is running. A lot of the things that I see people doing with JavaScript feel very familiar. It's exciting to see how the things that people are doing with JavaScript are approaching the capabilities of Genera, but in a way that will be much more accessible to the "kids these days".
- javascriptlol 15y ago
  I don't see the connection between Lisp machines and JavaScript. JavaScript (in the browser at least) is a heavy-weight C++ system utilising huge amounts of library and operating system code with some weak scripting capabilities a the bottom. What relation does that have to Lisp machines or Smalltalk type environments where everything is built in a simple an transparent manner?
  - jf 15y ago
    You're right, it's a weak connection right now. I could be wrong, but I'm seeing JavaScript getting pushed "down" the stack. People are doing things like implementing the DOM in pure JavaScript. I'm also very interested in seeing what people are doing with Emscripten, ClojureScript, swank-js, and the like. Yes, we don't have a Lisp or Smalltalk like environment for JavaScript. Not yet. Given how widely supported JavaScript is though, I could see us getting there organically? Not sure.
    - lispm 15y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lively_Kernel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lively_Kernel http://lively-kernel.org/ http://lively-kernel.org/
      - _exec 15y ago
        lispm, I've tried looking up the link you posted a year or so ago to a gallery of Genera software screenshots, but it doesn't seem to be working (lispm.dyndns.org). Have you moved the gallery somewhere else? Please let me know, I'm very interested in seeing how they look!
    - javascriptlol 15y ago
      Given that Mozilla aren't willing to redesign their browser to eliminate the recurring flaws, I find it implausible that they're going to go for a balls-out JavaScript-all-the-way-down approach. The way it's going now is more C++ code to do specialised tasks with a bit of scripting on the front. Is stuff like Emscripten getting us closer to a half-way decent design? It seems like this is all just enabling more complexity. Now we'll have C code compiled to JavaScript compiled to machine code. I like Embscripten and so forth for hack value, but this is a terrible way to build systems. I mean, people want sandboxed code in the browser, so why not make the whole browser sandboxed? Because nobody cares enough to put the effort in, I guess. Chrome is the only browser going along these lines and Mozilla is doing its best to hose down that effort because it just might allow people to program for a simple portable VM instead of all this application-parading-as-a-platform web standards stuff.
      - bzbarsky 15y ago
        > Given that Mozilla aren't willing to redesign their browser > to eliminate the recurring flaws http://www.2ality.com/2012/02/servo.html http://www.2ality.com/2012/02/servo.html is worth a read. > Chrome is the only browser going along these lines Chrome is using a C++ core with no plans to stop doing that that I know of....
        15y ago

jf 15y ago

I'm 29. The first used Genera a few years ago. The "Help" button the Symbolics machines blew me away. I've used software with great built-in help. It's impressive to see it system-wide. Another thing that I still find really impressive is how (aside from the bootloader) all of Genera is written in Lisp and can be edited, live, while the system is running. A lot of the things that I see people doing with JavaScript feel very familiar. It's exciting to see how the things that people are doing with JavaScript are approaching the capabilities of Genera, but in a way that will be much more accessible to the "kids these days".

javascriptlol 15y ago
I don't see the connection between Lisp machines and JavaScript. JavaScript (in the browser at least) is a heavy-weight C++ system utilising huge amounts of library and operating system code with some weak scripting capabilities a the bottom. What relation does that have to Lisp machines or Smalltalk type environments where everything is built in a simple an transparent manner?
- jf 15y ago
  You're right, it's a weak connection right now. I could be wrong, but I'm seeing JavaScript getting pushed "down" the stack. People are doing things like implementing the DOM in pure JavaScript. I'm also very interested in seeing what people are doing with Emscripten, ClojureScript, swank-js, and the like. Yes, we don't have a Lisp or Smalltalk like environment for JavaScript. Not yet. Given how widely supported JavaScript is though, I could see us getting there organically? Not sure.
  - lispm 15y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lively_Kernel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lively_Kernel http://lively-kernel.org/ http://lively-kernel.org/
    - _exec 15y ago
      lispm, I've tried looking up the link you posted a year or so ago to a gallery of Genera software screenshots, but it doesn't seem to be working (lispm.dyndns.org). Have you moved the gallery somewhere else? Please let me know, I'm very interested in seeing how they look!
  - javascriptlol 15y ago
    Given that Mozilla aren't willing to redesign their browser to eliminate the recurring flaws, I find it implausible that they're going to go for a balls-out JavaScript-all-the-way-down approach. The way it's going now is more C++ code to do specialised tasks with a bit of scripting on the front. Is stuff like Emscripten getting us closer to a half-way decent design? It seems like this is all just enabling more complexity. Now we'll have C code compiled to JavaScript compiled to machine code. I like Embscripten and so forth for hack value, but this is a terrible way to build systems. I mean, people want sandboxed code in the browser, so why not make the whole browser sandboxed? Because nobody cares enough to put the effort in, I guess. Chrome is the only browser going along these lines and Mozilla is doing its best to hose down that effort because it just might allow people to program for a simple portable VM instead of all this application-parading-as-a-platform web standards stuff.
    - bzbarsky 15y ago
      > Given that Mozilla aren't willing to redesign their browser > to eliminate the recurring flaws http://www.2ality.com/2012/02/servo.html http://www.2ality.com/2012/02/servo.html is worth a read. > Chrome is the only browser going along these lines Chrome is using a C++ core with no plans to stop doing that that I know of....
      - 15y ago