From: Adam Alpern
Subject: Lisp Uses (was: Re: What other experimental languages connect to a windowing system? (was: Why is TCL successful ?))
Date:
Message-ID: <ala-2107941905530001@el_diente.cs.colorado.edu>
In article <··················@x1.cygnus.com>, ····@x1.cygnus.com (Tom Lord) wrote:
;; Right. No general-use application written in lisp will ever fly.
;; Only in a few exotic situations do people ever use lisp.
;;
;; Tom Lord
;; part-time emacs hacker
Now hang on before you make such a wide sweeping statement (and try
saying it in a lisp newsgroup and watch the flames fly!). I agree
with your first statement. Deserved or not (not, imho), Lisp has a
rather bad reputation. Some people just can't deal with parens. But
then there is the valid argument of the application's footprint.
Common Lisp is a bloated everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink-and
the-garage-too monster, but other lisps, such as EuLisp, were designed
around a small language kernel with optional libraries.
Apple's Dylan promises to have the incremental development environment
of most good lisps with the option of static compilation for delivery.
While it's not a parenthesized language like common lisp (the syntax is
Algol-like), symantically it shares a great deal with lisp, is
sufficiently high level, and will probably make a good language for
"general-use applications".
I use lisp for alot more than a few exotic situations. I use it for file
management, backups, many things usually relegated to UNIX shell scripts
(which, obviously, don't exist on a Mac), such as search my filesystem
with regular expressions. Now, I know that that certainly doesn't mean
this would be viable for everyone, I just have a lisp image running almost
all the time when I'm at my computer, so I can afford the overhead of having
the entire development environment around just to copy a file.
Just a few thoughts.
Adam
--
Adam Alpern. HCC Group, University of Colorado at Boulder
···@cs.colorado.edu
···@neural.hampshire.edu
From: Thomas Lawrence
Subject: Re: Lisp Uses (was: Re: What other experimental languages connect to a windowing system? (was: Why is TCL successful ?))
Date:
Message-ID: <30n9go$2d2@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>
In article <····················@el_diente.cs.colorado.edu> ···@cs.colorado.edu (Adam Alpern) writes:
>In article <··················@x1.cygnus.com>, ····@x1.cygnus.com (Tom Lord) wrote:
>;; Right. No general-use application written in lisp will ever fly.
>;; Only in a few exotic situations do people ever use lisp.
>;;
>;; Tom Lord
>;; part-time emacs hacker
>
>Now hang on before you make such a wide sweeping statement (and try
>saying it in a lisp newsgroup and watch the flames fly!). I agree
>with your first statement.
[...]
Er... perhaps you missed his signature? ;-)
From: Adam Alpern
Subject: Re: Lisp Uses (was: Re: What other experimental languages connect to a windowing system? (was: Why is TCL successful ?))
Date:
Message-ID: <ala-2107942102290001@el_diente.cs.colorado.edu>
In article <··········@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, ········@cesn2.cen.uiuc.edu (Thomas Lawrence) wrote:
;; In article <····················@el_diente.cs.colorado.edu> ···@cs.colorado.edu (Adam Alpern) writes:
;; >In article <··················@x1.cygnus.com>, ····@x1.cygnus.com (Tom Lord) wrote:
;; >;; Right. No general-use application written in lisp will ever fly.
;; >;; Only in a few exotic situations do people ever use lisp.
;; >;;
;; >;; Tom Lord
;; >;; part-time emacs hacker
;; >
;; >Now hang on before you make such a wide sweeping statement (and try
;; >saying it in a lisp newsgroup and watch the flames fly!). I agree
;; >with your first statement.
;; [...]
;;
;; Er... perhaps you missed his signature? ;-)
Yep, I guess having been blinded by the "Unix Tower of Babble"
thread, that little bit was too much for my brain to handle ;-).
Emacs *is* a perfect example of a general-use application written
mostly in lisp. Actually, Emacs almost qualifies as an operating
system. Then again, I personally know a few part-time emacs hackers
who curse LISP and every one who uses it while they grudgingly program
the editor they're addicted to.
Adam
--
Adam Alpern. HCC Group, University of Colorado at Boulder
···@cs.colorado.edu
···@neural.hampshire.edu
From: Pierpaolo Bernardi
Subject: Re: Lisp Uses (was: Re: What other experimental languages connect to a windowing system? (was: Why is TCL successful ?))
Date:
Message-ID: <310mbn$hkm@serra.unipi.it>
Thomas Lawrence (········@cesn2.cen.uiuc.edu) wrote:
: In article <····················@el_diente.cs.colorado.edu> ···@cs.colorado.edu (Adam Alpern) writes:
: >In article <··················@x1.cygnus.com>, ····@x1.cygnus.com (Tom Lord) wrote:
: >;; Right. No general-use application written in lisp will ever fly.
: >;; Only in a few exotic situations do people ever use lisp.
: >;;
: >;; Tom Lord
: >;; part-time emacs hacker
: >
: >Now hang on before you make such a wide sweeping statement (and try
: >saying it in a lisp newsgroup and watch the flames fly!). I agree
: >with your first statement.
: [...]
: Er... perhaps you missed his signature? ;-)
By the way, 'Derive' is a succesful <general-use application>. It's
written in Lisp.
bye. P.
----
Pierpaolo Bernardi (·······@cli.di.unipi.it)
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: Lisp Uses (was: Re: What other experimental languages connect to a windowing system? (was: Why is TCL successful ?))
Date:
Message-ID: <MARCOXA.94Jul25175351@mosaic.nyu.edu>
In article <··········@serra.unipi.it> ·······@cli.di.unipi.it (Pierpaolo Bernardi) writes:
From: ·······@cli.di.unipi.it (Pierpaolo Bernardi)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.lisp
Followup-To: comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.lisp
Date: 25 Jul 1994 15:39:35 GMT
Organization: Dipartimento di Informatica, Universita' di Pisa
Lines: 23
Distribution: world
Thomas Lawrence (········@cesn2.cen.uiuc.edu) wrote:
: In article <····················@el_diente.cs.colorado.edu> ···@cs.colorado.edu (Adam Alpern) writes:
: >In article <··················@x1.cygnus.com>, ····@x1.cygnus.com (Tom Lord) wrote:
: >;; Right. No general-use application written in lisp will ever fly.
: Er... perhaps you missed his signature? ;-)
By the way, 'Derive' is a succesful <general-use application>. It's
written in Lisp.
Not to speak of Macsyma. And... has anybody looked beneath the surface
of Mathematica?
Happy Lisping
--
Marco Antoniotti - Resistente Umano
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robotics Lab | room: 1220 - tel. #: (212) 998 3370
Courant Institute NYU | e-mail: ·······@cs.nyu.edu
...e` la semplicita` che e` difficile a farsi.
...it is simplicity that is difficult to make.
Bertholdt Brecht
From: John Doner
Subject: Re: Lisp Uses (was: Re: What other experimental languages connect to a windowing system? (was: Why is TCL successful ?))
Date:
Message-ID: <30ne40$gqf@news.aero.org>
In article <····················@el_diente.cs.colorado.edu>, ···@cs.colorado.edu (Adam Alpern) writes:
|> management, backups, many things usually relegated to UNIX shell scripts
|> (which, obviously, don't exist on a Mac), such as search my filesystem
|> with regular expressions.
Actually, they DO exist on a Mac---in MPW, the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop. This programming
environment is really a complete Finder replacement with a UNIX-like interface and tools, including
scripts, searches with regular expressions, etc. By itself, it costs about $150, but it also comes
with some third-party products. For example, I bought an Ada compiler a few years ago for a mere
$149 and it came with MPW.
John Doner ·····@math.ucsb.edu or ·····@aero.org