2 ms·

His point is not that "people wanted to claim they were doing fancy math with their data storage, over all other considerations" -- but that they wanted to reif

• amalcon 17y ago
  You're right, that does make more sense. It would still seem that Lisp would have been more prominent if the ability to claim good theory (regardless of what you're actually doing) was a primary consideration. The average rank-and-file programmer (or manager) today just doesn't care about theory.
  • rbranson 17y ago
    Agreed. Most development organizations, especially those in large enterprises, the primary users of RDBMS technology when this article was written, are more concerned with coming up with the correct solution at the fastest clip. As far as they're concerned, theory be damned. Relations provide a simple, easy-to-understand data modeling concept and the query language is relatively quick to pick up for most developers. RDBMS are like the Java of data containers. You'll never get fired for going with an RDBMS.
  • jwhite 17y ago
    Lisp started from mathematical roots and grew towards practical applications. OP asserts that data processing grew from practical applications and claims that it then went for mathematical theory to try to make itself feel and appear more respectable. These are two quite different trajectories. Additionally, different disciplines often have quite different cultures and politics, which influences how their technologies get adopted.