Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 13:44:46 GMT
Dear friends,
I want to ask you a confirmation about an history point concerning the
origins of LISP (the section 2-13 of the FAQ doesn't say something about that).
Some years ago, one of my teacher says during a lesson that when John
McCarthy, around 1956, think to that will become LISP, he only want to write
an extension to the Fortran language (Fortran I or Fortran II at this time)
to manipulate lists structures. It would be only later that he thought to a
real new language, completely independant of Fortran.
Is there somebody who can confirm or infirm this fact, and can give me a
bibliographic reference? (it's for an article about Fortran that I have to
write...)
Thanks for answer.
Best regards,
------------------------------------------------------
Denis Girou (C.N.R.S./C.I.R.C.E.) |
Batiment 506 - B.P. 167 - 91403 Orsay Cedex - France |
E-mail : ·····@circe.fr - Tel. : 33. 1. 69.82.41.52 |
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In article <·······················@circe.fr> ·····@circe.fr (Denis Girou)
writes:
> Some years ago, one of my teacher says during a lesson that when John
> McCarthy, around 1956, think to that will become LISP, he only want to write
> an extension to the Fortran language (Fortran I or Fortran II at this time)
> to manipulate lists structures. It would be only later that he thought to a
> real new language, completely independant of Fortran.
> Is there somebody who can confirm or infirm this fact, and can give me a
> bibliographic reference? (it's for an article about Fortran that I have to
> write...)
I'm sure John McCarthy will know the answer to this. Email to
···@cs.stanford.edu should reach him.
-- Frank Yellin
In article <·······················@circe.fr> ·····@circe.fr (Denis Girou) writes:
>Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 13:44:46 GMT
> ...
>
> I want to ask you a confirmation about an history point concerning the
>origins of LISP (the section 2-13 of the FAQ doesn't say something about that).
>
> Some years ago, one of my teacher says during a lesson that when John
>McCarthy, around 1956, think to that will become LISP, he only want to write
>an extension to the Fortran language (Fortran I or Fortran II at this time)
>to manipulate lists structures. It would be only later that he thought to a
>real new language, completely independant of Fortran.
>
> ...
>
I think your teacher was right.
Here are some extracts from the paper
_The Influence of the Designer on the Design - J. McCarthy and LISP_
by Herbert Stoyan
published in
_Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Theory of Computation - Papers
in Honor of John McCarthy_ edited by Vladimir Lifschitz, Academic Press
Inc., 1991.
I suggest you get a hold of this paper for more details.
...
Around 1956 McCarthy understood the central role of a programming
language for his scientific goal - artificial intelligence. A
consulting job in 1957 enabled him to experiment with a combination
of algebraic notation (as it is used in FORTRAN for describing
arithmetical computation) and list processing (as it was invented
by Newell, Shaw, and Simon). The experiment was succesful and the
idea became for him a basis of thinking.
He analyzed existing programming languages more deeply (using
FORTRAN as model) and started to ask for new means of expression.
[pg 409]
...
The initial plan [5] (*) for LISP was an extension of FORTRAN.
[pg 411]
...
(*) [5] J. McCarthy: An Algebraic Language for the Manipulation of
Symbolic Expressions. MIT AI Memo 1, Cambridge, MA,
September 1958.
--
Taj Khattra peace and happiness and all the other
·······@cs.sfu.ca good shit ... - jimi hendrix