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From: Simon Brooke <····@assam.exnet.com>
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Date: Tue, 5 Jul 94 19:34:58 BST
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To: ······@netcom.com
Subject: Re: New Operating systems vs. Good Lisp Environment
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
In-Reply-To: <················@netcom.com>
Organization: ExNet Public-Access News, London, UK +44 81 244 0077
Cc:
Status: R
In article <················@netcom.com> you write:
>Sorry for wasting yet more bandwidth for asking such a general question
>
>What do all these new operating systems such as NT, Taligent, Workplace
>OS, NextSTep have over a good lisp enviroment with CLOS and various
>development tools and application. I am not refering to silly things
I understand you, I think...
I used to be an InterLISP hacker. These days, in order to live, I'm a
UNIX hacker. The argument against InterLISP was that it required an
enormously powerful machine -- two whole MIPS, four whole megabytes of
memory, and an enormous eighty megabyte disk -- to run. I.E. less than
Microsoft Windows NT. It had a drawing package better than COREL, a text
editor better than MS Word, all built in; and all programmable and
extendable in the same language. It took 1 (ONE) man week to write a
project planner better than Microsoft Project.
No opperating system yet written offers you one half the functionality
of a LISP environment.
However, why anyone would want to work in Common LISP (aka FORTRAN with
brackets) defeats me.
Have fun!
--
.::;====r==\ ····@uk.co.exnet (Simon Brooke)
/ /____||___\____ MS Windows IS an operating environment.
//==\ ~||~ | /__\( C++ IS an object oriented programming language.
//____\___||___|_// \|: Citroen 2cv6 IS a four door family saloon.
\__/ ~~~~~~~~~~ \__/
In article <················@netcom.com> ······@netcom.com "David Pollen" writes:
> No opperating system yet written offers you one half the functionality
> of a LISP environment.
I recall that Xerox PARC saying, "An operating system is a collection
of things that don't belong in a language. There shoudln't be one."
I _think_ this implies that a language can be visual (using X-Windows,
MS Windows, System 7, or what ever). Too bad so few people use the
term "visual" to mean anything other than VB. Look in comp.lang.visual,
as unless it's chnaged again, it'll be overrun with hords of Visual
Basic programmers.
> However, why anyone would want to work in Common LISP (aka FORTRAN with
> brackets) defeats me.
Why would anyone use C or Basic? Coz they get paid to, perhaps.
I'd be happy using a pure functional language, but commercial
implementations for the platform I use are not available yet.
Scheme, Common Lisp, and Dylan come close enough, and they are
and (in Dylan's case) will be commercially available.
--
Martin Rodgers, WKBBG, London UK AKA "Cyber Surfer"
If "One likes to believe in the freedom of email", email
················@cpsr.org and tell them you oppose Clipper.
This is a shareware .signature -- please pass it on!
In article <················@netcom.com> ······@netcom.com (David
Pollen) writes:
>I used to be an InterLISP hacker....
>
>No opperating system yet written offers you one half the functionality
>of a LISP environment.
Thanks for an inspiring post.
>However, why anyone would want to work in Common LISP (aka FORTRAN with
>brackets) defeats me.
But...good heavens. My girlfriend works in Fortran, and I've been
writing some Common Lisp code these days. I watch her declare
100-by-2000 arrays--"For most data sets I only need 100 by 100, but
occasionally I need it all"--while I'm carefully writing delete's
rather than remove's to save conses. Then there was the time she had
to iterate over the set { (a_1, ..., a_n) | 0 <= a_i < b_i } where n
was not known beforehand. Any Fortran solution to that problem is
going to be a mess. Users of any Lisp have it really good.