I have a background with little formal education in programming, in
fact only two BACIS courses. One in 1971, programming with paper and
pencil, with only a two sessions of practice on an ASR33 connected to
an NORD-1 via telephone at the end of the schoolyear. I got my own
computer in 1973, a 6502-based KIM-1-computer. Since then I have
worked as a service engineer an system developer at a computer dealer,
a computer user company and several consultancy firms. The focus was
to write usable applications for in-house use, and the interesting
technologies were database design. While my colleges moved to things
like project mamagement, I held on to my interest in programming.
Languages were COBOL, FORTRAN and lots of so called fouth generation
languages, which was really parameter files where extra functionality
crept in over the years, made to make programmers superfluous. I was
enthusiastic with C, a high level language with freedom, made for
programmers. I tried to learn C++, it took years of reading and
experimenting before I saw that it was not me that was the problem,
rather it was the language. Then there was rexx and perl and python
and ruby... and of course Java, which is my workhorse language as of
today. Each language had one extra finesse more than the other. These
finesses were discussed in the context of Lisp, i.e is Ruby's closures
exactly as advanced and useful as Lisps closures? After a few of these
discussions I got curious of what Lisp was. I considered to learn
Emacs Lisp, but did not get around to learning it before I discovered
Common Lisp and its promise of being advanced, fast and practical.
And an important point was that there exist several useful
implementations in the form of free software.
My plan is now to learn the language, and to look for an opportunity
to use it professionally. Just like I did with Java some years ago,
before the men with the budgets knew of its existence.
Reading John McCarthys 1960 paper, I understand that I have missed
something, this thing has been going on outside my horizen all my
career. A hindrance to learning is the immensely interesting history
of this language, it is more interesting to read documents and fora
like this, than to actually program. Well, as I follow the threads, I
always have an ilisp buffer handy not far away from my fingertips.
Johan Ur Riise wrote:
> A hindrance to learning is the immensely interesting history
> of this language, it is more interesting to read documents and fora
> like this, than to actually program.
heh-heh. And in my experience a hindrance to commercial success using
Lisp is that, if one is doing anything halfway interesting, one is bound
to invent something cool and get sidetracked from the now boring
commercial effort.
The story of me and Lisp explains pretty thoroughly why Lisp is only now
beginning to take over the world.
The thing with me and programming has always been an insane thrill at
getting a dumb box to do my bidding. I got stoked over persuading an IBM
god-knows-what to print the numbers 1 thru 10, back in 73 in Fortran on
punch cards. For my fourth assignment I got all fired up over seeing
machines do things they could not do and hacked up a monstrosity that
could play solitaire.
Five years later I was looking at en electronics magazine looking for
gift ideas for XMas and realized that I could own a computer. There was
a TRS-80 on the cover. I absolutely freaked out. At last I would be able
to write a program to play chess.
I also went home, turned on the TV, and when the TRS-80 commercial came
on I realized I had been seeing those commercials for months. ie, Humans
are not rational, perception is not objective, we cannot see what we do
not think is possible, or something along those lines. (This goes to why
Lisp is still a hard sell.)
I stopped eating and buying newspapers and anything else optional until
I had enough to get an Apple II, loaded with 16K thank you. I also ended
up in a lot of neat little computer stores and found in one a Lisp 1.5
Programming Manual, which I had come to understand would be the thing to
use for chess and then of course AI. Couldn't make much sense out of it,
tho.
The Apple II came with integer basic in ROM and then MS Basic. I wrote a
program to play either side of MasterMind, a logic game. That was also a
god-forsaken mess. Then I wrote a pocket billiards simulation and had to
learn 6502 Assembler to get any amount of speed (but it still was not
enough).
That was all done while I was a schoolteacher, then I decided to switch
to programming. Fast forward to 1984 and a break between consulting
contracts when I decide to write a commercial app that can tutor kids
step-by-step through any given Algebra problem. I decide to use MS Logo
(still on my Apple II!) so I can check out something weird I had read,
that Lisp was a 4GL by the definition that it made development an order
of magnitude easier than 3GL.
Totally loved recursion. When the Apple II maxed out I got a Mac and
went insanely far with Logo until deciding it would be too slow and I
would have to do the app in C.
Fast forward maybe another seven years and I am ready to do version 2 of
tha algebra app, but I am desperately seeking A Better Way. Tried Stoney
Ballard's Component Workshop, then QKS SmalltalkAgents which never
stopped crashing. Finally posted a message on CompuServe's macdev saying
I had given up and was going to use C++, which I loathed simply from
having read a couple of chapters of Stroustrups reference. Dr Jeffrey
Kane responded on Columbus Day appropriately enough: why didn't I look
at MCL? Mature, compiled, ANSI standard and a few other things. I knew
at once it was what I had been looking for. I picked up the phone and
ordered a copy, never looked back.
This is part two of "why lisp cant get no respect". There I was actively
looking for what Lisp had to offer. Every time I looked through APDA I
saw the big MCL advert. Rich Parker, Mac author, periodically raved over
MCL on macdev. Hellooooo? But I was still stuck on the "Lisp is slow"
thing and even a not-ready-for-prime-time thing based on a bad
experience with ExperLisp. I was wholly unaware of the ANSI
standardization, or that Lisps by then were quite fast.
And the coolest irony was that the software in question had been
prototyped in Logo which I had loved, and MCL /still/ could not get me
to take it seriously. Go figure. But after my CW and STA experiences,
when Jeff hit me over the head with the "stable, mature, fast" stick I
had no trouble reaching Enlightenment.
But then we developed Semaphors and I lost all interest in the Algebra
app, just worked on Semaphors till I ran out of money. :)
--
kenny tilton
clinisys, inc
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Harvey has overcome not only time and space but any objections."
Elwood P. Dowd
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> The Apple II came with integer basic in ROM and then MS Basic. I
> wrote a program to play either side of MasterMind, a logic
> game. That was also a god-forsaken mess. Then I wrote a pocket
> billiards simulation and had to learn 6502 Assembler to get any
> amount of speed (but it still was not enough).
Er, MS Basic, are you sure? I also had one of those Apple II puppies
and I always thought the whole software that came with the machine
(including the Basic) was written by Woz.
Edi.
--
Dr. Edmund Weitz
Hamburg
Germany
The Common Lisp Cookbook
<http://cl-cookbook.sourceforge.net/>
In article <··············@bird.agharta.de>,
···@agharta.de (Dr. Edmund Weitz) wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
> > The Apple II came with integer basic in ROM and then MS Basic. I
> > wrote a program to play either side of MasterMind, a logic
> > game. That was also a god-forsaken mess. Then I wrote a pocket
> > billiards simulation and had to learn 6502 Assembler to get any
> > amount of speed (but it still was not enough).
>
> Er, MS Basic, are you sure? I also had one of those Apple II puppies
> and I always thought the whole software that came with the machine
> (including the Basic) was written by Woz.
The original Integer BASIC was written at Apple, but the later AppleSoft
BASIC was by Microsoft.
-- Bruce
Bruce Hoult wrote:
> The original Integer BASIC was written at Apple, but the later AppleSoft
> BASIC was by Microsoft.
Yes, that is the one I meant. Apple's BASIC in ROM was an integer basic
and I needed floating point for the billiards sim.
Thems was the days. :)
--
kenny tilton
clinisys, inc
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Harvey has overcome not only time and space but any objections."
Elwood P. Dowd
Bruce Hoult <·····@hoult.org> writes:
> In article <··············@bird.agharta.de>,
> ···@agharta.de (Dr. Edmund Weitz) wrote:
>
> > Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> >
> > > The Apple II came with integer basic in ROM and then MS Basic. I
> > > wrote a program to play either side of MasterMind, a logic
> > > game. That was also a god-forsaken mess. Then I wrote a pocket
> > > billiards simulation and had to learn 6502 Assembler to get any
> > > amount of speed (but it still was not enough).
> >
> > Er, MS Basic, are you sure? I also had one of those Apple II
> > puppies and I always thought the whole software that came with the
> > machine (including the Basic) was written by Woz.
>
> The original Integer BASIC was written at Apple, but the later
> AppleSoft BASIC was by Microsoft.
Thanks for clarifying - I somehow managed to mentally skip the
"integer basic in ROM and then" part in Kenny's posting.
Edi.
--
Dr. Edmund Weitz
Hamburg
Germany
The Common Lisp Cookbook
<http://cl-cookbook.sourceforge.net/>
"Dr. Edmund Weitz" schrieb:
> Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> > The Apple II came with integer basic in ROM and then MS Basic. I
> > wrote a program to play either side of MasterMind, a logic
> > game. That was also a god-forsaken mess. Then I wrote a pocket
> > billiards simulation and had to learn 6502 Assembler to get any
> > amount of speed (but it still was not enough).
> Er, MS Basic, are you sure? I also had one of those Apple II puppies
> and I always thought the whole software that came with the machine
> (including the Basic) was written by Woz.
I have here a 5 1/4" Disk with DOS 3.3 - boot. This is MS-DOS. This made
some games runing on Aplle ][ (6502 proz). Usualy you need a second
"Device" B:\ :)). As fare as I know, my Apple has a high-res mode and a
hidden graphik-page. But later I use a Z-80 Card for this Apple, whitch
gives me more registers. One thing I hate since this time: The box/case
is the first thing I remove from my computers :)
stefan
On Sat, 20 Apr 2002 02:03:31 +0200,
lin8080 <·······@freenet.de> wrote:
> One thing I hate since this time: The box/case
> is the first thing I remove from my computers :)
>
But since you lose the warranty, when you open the screws on the back,
you might want to consider the advice given on
http://www.datadocktorn.nu/us_kortbyte1.php
oh, and don't forget to check out the totally platform independent
way of "defraggeling your hard disk".
another stefan.
Stefan Schmiedl schrieb:
> On Sat, 20 Apr 2002 02:03:31 +0200,
> lin8080 <·······@freenet.de> wrote:
> > One thing I hate since this time: The box/case
> > is the first thing I remove from my computers :)
> But since you lose the warranty, when you open the screws on the back,
> you might want to consider the advice given on ...
Thank you. But there is only one problem. Who gives a guarantee on
second hand PCs? I am not the person who pay big money for a big pc,
only to realize that it is the same story a half year later. This is ...
> oh, and don't forget to check out the totally platform independent
> way of "defraggeling your hard disk".
Thats PTS-Dos, written in assembler. The fastest I know. Sure there are
others, but they are not better for my use. (and let me say, its about
10 years ago, since I buy me last pc-game).
So, is it better, to run a big text-editor on a big pc or a small one on
a small pc? You simply type in text (means contents).
stefan
"Dr. Edmund Weitz" wrote:
>
> Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>
> Er, MS Basic, are you sure? I also had one of those Apple II puppies
> and I always thought the whole software that came with the machine
> (including the Basic) was written by Woz.
btw, overall Woz indeed was "the man", and if it is any consolation, by
the time I got to the 6502 version of the billiards sim I am almost
positive the floating-point routines I used (source published in
something with a funny name like "the red book") were written by Woz.
--
kenny tilton
clinisys, inc
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Harvey has overcome not only time and space but any objections."
Elwood P. Dowd