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I've read a large factor was minicomputers and microcomputers running Unix in C became much more affordable, and when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 DoD funding f

I've read a large factor was minicomputers and microcomputers running Unix in C became much more affordable, and when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 DoD funding for powerful and expensive Lisp workstations quickly dried up. And the nascent free software Lisp offerings left a lot to be desired (to be developed). This visualization of relative programming language popularity shows Lisp was the 3rd most popular general purpose language in Q1 of 1984 behind Pascal (a learning language?) and C. (Prolog shows at 12th, then drops off the chart) Most Popular Programming Languages: Data from 1958 to 2025 https://youtu.be/ZTPrbAKmcdo?t=116 https://youtu.be/ZTPrbAKmcdo?t=116 Gabriel's perspective from 1990: Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big - Richard P. Gabriel - Lucid, Inc https://dreamsongs.com/WIB.html https://dreamsongs.com/WIB.html

ux266478 2mo ago
That's why nobody uses Lisp machines today, but Lisp is somewhat orthogonal. It's true that the death of the Lisp machine economy hurt Lisp more than the end of the FGCS hurt Prolog. BUT this was happening long before the winter hit. > This visualization of relative programming language popularity shows Lisp was the 3rd most popular general purpose language Which is fine, and makes sense. But I'm addressing a claim about Lisp being "the Language" for the era of symbolic AI. Which is decidedly not high volume, nor is it general at all, it's really quite specific. I'm correcting it, because I know Americans are heavily culturally silo'd on this, and symbolic AI is especially esoteric. Most people probably can't name a single commercial expert system off the top of their head, and that's not unreasonable. Our cultural view of symbolic AI is rife with American exceptionalism (I theorize partially because of government involvement) that just doesn't track with reality. Speaking as an American.
pasc1878 2mo ago
Pascal in 1984 was not just a teaching language. The ranking then was due to Turbo Pascal which came out in November 1983. It was probaly the first IDE and compiler on PCs
- so-cal-schemer 2mo ago
  Great point for the timeline. more: https://wiki.c2.com/?PascalLanguage https://wiki.c2.com/?PascalLanguage

ux266478 2mo ago

That's why nobody uses Lisp machines today, but Lisp is somewhat orthogonal. It's true that the death of the Lisp machine economy hurt Lisp more than the end of the FGCS hurt Prolog. BUT this was happening long before the winter hit. > This visualization of relative programming language popularity shows Lisp was the 3rd most popular general purpose language Which is fine, and makes sense. But I'm addressing a claim about Lisp being "the Language" for the era of symbolic AI. Which is decidedly not high volume, nor is it general at all, it's really quite specific. I'm correcting it, because I know Americans are heavily culturally silo'd on this, and symbolic AI is especially esoteric. Most people probably can't name a single commercial expert system off the top of their head, and that's not unreasonable. Our cultural view of symbolic AI is rife with American exceptionalism (I theorize partially because of government involvement) that just doesn't track with reality. Speaking as an American.

pasc1878 2mo ago

Pascal in 1984 was not just a teaching language. The ranking then was due to Turbo Pascal which came out in November 1983. It was probaly the first IDE and compiler on PCs

so-cal-schemer 2mo ago
Great point for the timeline. more: https://wiki.c2.com/?PascalLanguage https://wiki.c2.com/?PascalLanguage