In article <·····················@KENNETH-WILLIAMS.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>,
····@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM ("David A. Moon") writes:
> certainly can't see the harm in that. Of course, a yet higher level
> language than Lisp, which some of us might still yearn for, would
> separate the issue of expressing the computation from the issue of
> choosing the data representation, thus freeing the programmer from
> thinking about all of these different data types all the time without
> going back to nothing but linked lists.
This is the prime motivation for object-oriented programming; and it
requires not a new language, but rather:
(1) Better optimization of Lisp's existing polymorphic operations
(e.g., the sequence functions).
(2) The progressive extension of CLOS' object-oriented programming
capability to more and more of the preexisting Common Lisp functions
and datatypes. That is, implementors should strive to progressively
decrease the number of built-in classes (i.e., classes that cannot be
inherited) and the number of non-generic functions (i.e., functions
that cannot be specialized for a new class). Without sacrificing
performance, of course!
Lawrence G. Mayka
AT&T Bell Laboratories
···@iexist.att.com
Standard disclaimer.