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He also hated Lisp

• kazinator 2y ago
  I don't know of evidence that he did. But Dijkstra left us a famous quote: "LISP has jokingly been described as “the most intelligent way to misuse a computer”. I think that description a great compliment because it transmits the full flavour of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts." This is obviously a compliment; it even mentions that word. Even a less positive remark than this would still be resounding compliment from a computer scientist who said things such as that BASIC causes irreparable brain damage! So count this as a piece of evidence that he liked Lisp. Lisp emphasizes structured approaches, and from the start it has encouraged (though not required) techniques which avoid destructive manipulation. There is a lot in Lisp to appeal to someone with a mindset similar to Dijkstra.
  • personalityson 2y ago
    "I must confess that I was very slow on appreciating LISP’s merits. My first introduction was via a paper that defined the semantics of LISP in terms of LISP, I did not see how that could make sense, I rejected the paper and LISP with it." https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD12xx/EWD1284.html https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD12xx/EWD128...
    • kazinator 2y ago
      Even McCarthy initially rejected the idea that the Lisp-in-Lisp specification could simply be translated into working code so that an interpreter pops out; at first he thought Steve Russel was misunderstanding something.