In article <·················@netcom.com> ·······@netcom.com (William Paul Vrotney) writes:
From: ·······@netcom.com (William Paul Vrotney)
In article <···············@netcom.com>
······@netcom.com (David Pollen) writes:
> ...
> Alternatively, people might think Lisp has too many functions,
> but I don't think that this argument cuts it either.
Someone once told me:
"The Operating System is everything that
was left out of the language."
Comparing Great Big LISP with little tiny C ignores
the fact that most non-trivial C programs include
quite a large collection of library calls. A more
valid comparison would be btween Common Lisp and
UNIX+C; and the content of /usr/lib is certainly no
less intimidating than the content of CLtL.
--
Jeff Hultquist ········@nas.nasa.gov
NASA - Ames Research Center (415) 604-4970
In article <······················@wk206.nas.nasa.gov>
········@nas.nasa.gov "Jeff P. M. Hultquist" writes:
> Someone once told me:
>
> "The Operating System is everything that
> was left out of the language."
The Xerox PARC version of this is (from memory), "An operating
system is a collection of things that don't belong in a language.
There shouldn't be one."
My first computer was a machine with a 12K ROM for the system
software. I think that about 2K was for I/O, and the rest was
for Basic. Someone managed to write a Lisp that could run in
the 16K of RAM that was available at the time.
--
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!