In article <············@wildcard.demon.co.uk>, Cyber Surfer wrote:
>If the Sun people who created Java didn't know Lisp, then they
>could be forgiven for making the mistakes they did. If they knew
>Lisp and _still_ designed it so badly, then I'm not so sure. It
>might even be possible that some people might prefer Java to Lisp,
>even after using Lisp. It wouldn't suprise me. However, I'm hoping
>that Java will introduce a few non-Lispers to ideas that may lead
>them eventually to Lisp.
A recent Addison Wesley catalog lists "The Java Series."
"The Java Language Specification" is by James Gosling, Bill Joy, and Guy
Steele. The first line of blurb indicates:
"Written by the inventors of the Java technology..."
If memory serves correctly, Gosling is the one after whom Gosling Emacs is
named. That was rather LISP-based, was it not?
And Guy Steele is the author of Common Lisp: The Language (Digital Press).
Of course, he's also jointly responsible for "H+S" aka "C: The Reference
Manual," which makes him something of a heretic from a LISP standpoint.
(Keep your smiley on here.)
Bill Joy is not so notable in the LISP world; he's more notable for
developments with Sun, vi, and BSD UNIX.
--
Christopher B. Browne, ········@unicomp.net, ············@sdt.com
Web: http://www.conline.com/~cbbrowne SAP Basis Consultant, UNIX Guy
Windows NT - How to make a 100 MIPS Linux workstation perform like an 8 MHz 286
From: Cyber Surfer
Subject: Re: Lisp is alive, was "Re: Common LISP: The Next Generation"
Date:
Message-ID: <842727767snz@wildcard.demon.co.uk>
In article <·······················@wolfe.brownes.org>
········@unicomp.net "Christopher B. Browne" writes:
> If memory serves correctly, Gosling is the one after whom Gosling Emacs is
> named. That was rather LISP-based, was it not?
I've no idea - I've only used Emacs very briefly, but I'm told it
uses Lisp. So that would answer my question about whether or not
these people know of Lisp.
> And Guy Steele is the author of Common Lisp: The Language (Digital Press).
> Of course, he's also jointly responsible for "H+S" aka "C: The Reference
> Manual," which makes him something of a heretic from a LISP standpoint.
> (Keep your smiley on here.)
I have both CLtL1 (pb) and CLtL2 (hb).
> Bill Joy is not so notable in the LISP world; he's more notable for
> developments with Sun, vi, and BSD UNIX.
That name is also familiar. Thanks for answering my question.
BTW, I don't recall reading about these people and their
connection with Java in any of the magazines I read, dispite
the many references to Java. All I remember reading was that
_Sun_ created Java. I guess the assumption is either that most
people won't know who these people are, or they won't care.
Magazines tend to make assumptions like that - as I've said
already, Byte appear to stopped reviewing Lisp systems. I hope
I'm wrong and that they've changed that habit since I stopped
regularly reading the mag. It could be that they _did_ review
a Lisp during the last few years, but I just missed it.
Anyway, thanks. It doesn't change the point I was making, which
is that Java is missing a lot of important Lisp-like features,
like closures. Odd how some people are _adding_ these things
to Java, isn't it? Why didn't the designers of Java do that
themselves? Tsk.
Still, in a few years it might not matter. The Kawa compiler
might take over from Java. It should...
--
<URL:http://www.enrapture.com/cybes/> You can never browse enough
Future generations are relying on us
It's a world we've made - Incubus
We're living on a knife edge, looking for the ground -- Hawkwind
From: Erik Naggum
Subject: Re: Lisp is alive, was "Re: Common LISP: The Next Generation"
Date:
Message-ID: <3051773881154149@naggum.no>
[Cyber Surfer]
| I've no idea - I've only used Emacs very briefly, but I'm told it uses
| Lisp. So that would answer my question about whether or not these
| people know of Lisp.
could you list the Lisp systems and Lisp or Lisp-based environments you
have actually used? my impression is that you have not used _any_.
#\Erik
--
those who do not know Lisp are doomed to reimplement it
From: Cyber Surfer
Subject: Re: Lisp is alive, was "Re: Common LISP: The Next Generation"
Date:
Message-ID: <842812724snz@wildcard.demon.co.uk>
In article <················@naggum.no> ····@naggum.no "Erik Naggum" writes:
> | I've no idea - I've only used Emacs very briefly, but I'm told it uses
> | Lisp. So that would answer my question about whether or not these
> | people know of Lisp.
>
> could you list the Lisp systems and Lisp or Lisp-based environments you
> have actually used? my impression is that you have not used _any_.
I can't remember them all, but I'd start with XLISP and
Cambridge Lisp, on the Atari ST. I was impressed by the
later, as a compiled program could run as fast as any
other compiled language on that machine (as far as I could
tell without using benchmarks), _and_ make full use of
the GUI (GEM).
I've also used several SCM ports for Windows, MIT Scheme
for Windows, and ACL for Windows.
Ok, the list is not as great as some people here (15+?
My list is nowhere near that number), but I never claimed
that it was. In fact, I've pointed out my lack of experience
with Lisp. I may have written a couple of Lisp interpreters
and very crude compiler for a _very_ small subset of Scheme,
but I realise that this is very different from creating a
full Lisp system.
In case anyone had any doubts, I've been speaking for the
last few week or two as a Windows developer, more than a
Lisp developer. I _know_ that the requirements of these
two kinds of developer are very different - that's my point!
They _are_ different. Radically different. I'm just wondering
why this should be, and _any_ damn fool can do that.
Could it be that Windows developers are just ignorant fools,
and deserve all the pain and frustration that they endure
simply coz they're in the job? I don't accept that. I'm more
inclined to believe that there's a media conspiracy created
by mass advertising, from vendors like MS, selling C++ compilers
and telling developers that C++ is THE ONE TRUE WAY.
It also seems more likely that the lack of interest from
Lisp vendors in offering a Lisp system for Windows that can
compete with VC++, VB, etc. Perhaps there's simply no demand
for such a system, which suggests that either C++ programmers
have yet to discover the joys of using Lisp, or those joys
are imaginary. Judging by my own experiences with Lisp, I'd
say that they're real enough.
The sudden popularity of Java suggests to me that there are
programmers hungry for "change", i.e. an alternative to C++.
I wonder how many of those Java converts would embrace Lisp,
if they only knew it existed and could offer them something
even _better_ than Java?
Who will tell them? I might, but I'm not experienced enough
with Lisp to offer my own experience as "evidence", or argue
effectively in favour of Lisp. In comp.lang.lisp, we all know
Lisp is THE ONE TRUE WAY, and I've seen people offer CS papers
to disprove the myths used to attack Lisp. I know where some
of these papers are, but it's not my nature to argue with such
hostile people. (Remember the media con?) These unfortunate
programmers have been brainwashed, and I'm not sure _I_ want
to try "deprogramming" them.
I'm still working on my Lisp to C compiler, but it won't be
"ready" this year. It won't produce anything more than pretty
feeble code, and it won't begin to compete with the "visual"
development tools being sold in vast numbers by commercial
interestes like MS, Borland, Symantec, etc. If I can create
a tool that _I_ can use, that'll be a start, but it won't
necessarily help anyone else, and I don't even know how much
use it'll be to myself.
That's why I keep looking for a commercial alternative to my
own feeble efforts. And lo! Behold Dylan! Perhaps all I have
to do is wait...It seems I'm not alone after all!
I'm a Dylan convert, and all I've used so far is Mindy, and
on a Win32 platform, it doesn't even use a GUI. Still, _in
theory_ I could use it to write CGI code. I may like that much
more than using MzScheme. In practice, I'll be expected to
use C++, because that'll be able to exploit ISAPI.
How many Lisps have I used? Quite a lot, considering that
I'm forced to use a platform with so few Lisps available
for it, and some of them are hard to find.
--
<URL:http://www.enrapture.com/cybes/> You can never browse enough
Future generations are relying on us
It's a world we've made - Incubus
We're living on a knife edge, looking for the ground -- Hawkwind
From: William Tanksley
Subject: Re: Lisp is alive, was "Re: Common LISP: The Next Generation"
Date:
Message-ID: <323C89B2.60F7@stac.com>
Cyber Surfer wrote:
> Could it be that Windows developers are just ignorant fools,
> and deserve all the pain and frustration that they endure
> simply coz they're in the job? I don't accept that. I'm more
> inclined to believe that there's a media conspiracy created
> by mass advertising, from vendors like MS, selling C++ compilers
> and telling developers that C++ is THE ONE TRUE WAY.
> It also seems more likely that the lack of interest from
> Lisp vendors in offering a Lisp system for Windows that can
> compete with VC++, VB, etc. Perhaps there's simply no demand
> for such a system, which suggests that either C++ programmers
> have yet to discover the joys of using Lisp, or those joys
> are imaginary. Judging by my own experiences with Lisp, I'd
> say that they're real enough.
I'm a windows hater, and I'm not Lisp-literate (although I do read
Scheme, so I'll eventually learn Lisp). I do happen to have some info
which might be helpful.
I'm a Forth person, and I happen to know of a Forth interpreter which
might do just what you want (I mean that you might be able to use the
info in it to do what you want).
Win32Forth, by Tom Zimmer, can interactively call any DLL in the windows
system. Look it up at www.taygeta.com. It's free, but I have no idea
what its licence is.
Good luck.
-Billy
Who REALLY wants to see an equivalent interactive environment (indeed,
ANY interactive environment) for PC-Geos. I don't know enough about
Scheme/Lisp to do it, but I do know that those two would be some of the
best choices, due to the odd way in which Geos manages memory-- you have
to check memory out (using a handle) before you can use it. Anybody
wanna help? You'll gain a few more programmers for the Lisp/Scheme
cause, including some very good ones who are currently tied up on
applications.
From: Cyber Surfer
Subject: Re: Lisp is alive, was "Re: Common LISP: The Next Generation"
Date:
Message-ID: <842878518snz@wildcard.demon.co.uk>
In article <················@naggum.no> ····@naggum.no "Erik Naggum" writes:
> could you list the Lisp systems and Lisp or Lisp-based environments you
> have actually used? my impression is that you have not used _any_.
I forgot to mention CLISP, but I don't know how. Perhaps I was
thinking exclusively of GUI based Lisps. While I understand that
CLISP does have GUI support for some platforms, all I have is
the DOS port. I _have_ used it.
The first version of my index compiler was written using CLISP,
later rewritten in Scheme, using SCM, and finally the original CL
version was updated, using ACL for Windows. Alas, the index is
no longer maintained, and so I no longer use the index compiler.
--
<URL:http://www.enrapture.com/cybes/> You can never browse enough
Future generations are relying on us
It's a world we've made - Incubus
We're living on a knife edge, looking for the ground -- Hawkwind
From: Georg Bauer
Subject: Lisp is alive, was "Re: Common LISP: The Next Generation"
Date:
Message-ID: <199609161948.a45930@ms3.maus.de>
Hi!
CBBc>And Guy Steele is the author of Common Lisp: The Language (Digital
CBBc>Press).
And is one of the premier Scheme-people, too. Quite very active, isn't he?
:-)
bye, Georg
From: ········@wat.hookup.net
Subject: Re: Lisp is alive, was "Re: Common LISP: The Next Generation"
Date:
Message-ID: <51mvoa$3ch@nic.wat.hookup.net>
In <···················@ms3.maus.de>, ···········@ms3.maus.westfalen.de (Georg Bauer) writes:
>Hi!
>
>CBBc>And Guy Steele is the author of Common Lisp: The Language (Digital
>CBBc>Press).
>
>And is one of the premier Scheme-people, too. Quite very active, isn't he?
>:-)
>
>bye, Georg
He was also involved in the PL1 standard.
Hartmann Schaffer