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Programmers may have wanted to program in other languages but users wanted speed. People were already buying computers that cost more than cars and they ran li
by CyberDildonics 1y ago
Programmers may have wanted to program in other languages but users wanted speed.
People were already buying computers that cost more than cars and they ran like molasses.
You have to deliver what customers want on their terms, not program on your own terms.
- kjs3 1y agousers wanted speed I'd argue users wanted off the shelf software, not bespoke solutions, which is why they were cool with slow machines that ran 123, dBase and Wordperfect.
- CyberDildonics 1y agoI don't know what you're trying to say here, all those programs would have run terribly if they were written in lisp or scheme.
- pjmlp 1y agoCompiled languages with automatic memory management were already a thing in 16 bit home computers, and they run fast enough for boring data entry business software, e.g. anything xBASE, compiled BASIC. Anything to do with graphics and games, yes only Assembly would do the trick.
- Tuna-Fish 1y agoJust word processors and spreadsheets were not fast enough for general use in the 80's. Everyone was mostly exited for making them faster, not for graphics and games.
- pjmlp 1y agoStill, not all of them were fully written in Assembly, like games and graphics. I was there, and wrote my share of Clipper and DBase III code, among many other things.
- CyberDildonics 1y agoYou think hit software back then was written in basic or anything close to scheme? DBase was written in assembly first, word perfect was written in assembly first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPerfect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPerfect
- pjmlp 1y agoYes, DBase was written in Assembly, like many compilers and interpreters back then, and I am certain you would be able to dig out a Lisp or Scheme compiler for CP/M equally written in Assembly. Yet, the folks down at the bank, insurance companies, and video rentals, were using DBase applications written in xBase, compiled via Clipper, not Assembly. My first computer was a Timex 2068, I kind of know what was being written with what.
- CyberDildonics 1y agoI don't know what you're trying to say here. This thread was about someone saying in an alternate universe lisp computers might have caught on. They were never going to catch on and it was never going to work because people didn't want them. Programmers might have wanted to program in lisp, but users didn't want to buy software made in lisp. For some reason you're bringing up that someone may have written some scripts in an interpreted language which if anything reinforces that lisp machines weren't necessary.
- pjmlp 1y ago> I'd argue users wanted off the shelf software, not bespoke solutions, which is why they were cool with slow machines that ran 123, dBase and Wordperfect. Followed by > I don't know what you're trying to say here, all those programs would have run terribly if they were written in lisp or scheme. While dBase was written in Assembly, the interpreter, Clipper, the compiler was written in C, and dBase software written in xBase programming language, a programming language that by Clipper 5 days was just like Lisp or Scheme in capabilities, garbage collected, able to do functional programming, and OOP, in 640 KB, running on 20 MHz CPUs.
- goalieca 1y agoWhat I remember from the 80s/90s is that computer speed was never fast enough to keep up with use cases. Users really did want speed and marketers focused on speed.
- kjs3 1y agoComputers are still never fast enough. But for 95% of users, if you said "you can have a computer that's 5x as fast, but won't run any of the software you use every day", they'd pass.
- CyberDildonics 1y agolisp machines would have been slow, expensive and not run any software.