From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Did Common Lisp introduce sequences as the union of lists and vectors?
Date:
Message-ID: <m3y8sk7ng3.fsf@javamonkey.com>
Based on brief glance through my Chinual and Interlisp manual it seems
that neither of those dialects had functions such as REMOVE and DELETE
that worked on both lists and vectors the way Common Lisp's versions
do. Was the unification of lists and vectors into the sequence type
introduced in Common Lisp?
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Did Common Lisp introduce sequences as the union of lists and vectors?
Date:
Message-ID: <m3k73z2te9.fsf@javamonkey.com>
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> writes:
> Based on brief glance through my Chinual and Interlisp manual it seems
> that neither of those dialects had functions such as REMOVE and DELETE
> that worked on both lists and vectors the way Common Lisp's versions
> do. Was the unification of lists and vectors into the sequence type
> introduced in Common Lisp?
Okay, another bit of data, I found an '84 Chineual online[1] and it
has a chapter on generic sequence functions (Chapter 9) which include
several that are now in Common Lisp. That chapter also describes
several functions in the CLI package which are the Common Lisp
versions of functions that had--according to that manual--a different
meaning in Zetalisp (e.g. MAP and SOME).
Of course the addition of that chapter between '81 (when my hardcopy
Chineual is from) and '84 may simply reflect the backporting of good
ideas from Common Lisp. Or maybe it reflects the simultaneous
introduction of the same idea (unifiying lists and vectors into
sequence type) perhaps originating from the same person into the then
nascent Common Lisp standardization and Zetalisp. Or maybe that idea
*did* originate in Zetalisp, prior to Common Lisp. Any language
historians know which it was?
-Peter
[1] <http://bitsavers.org/pdf/mit/cadr/chineualJan84/>
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: Marcus Breiing
Subject: Re: Did Common Lisp introduce sequences as the union of lists and vectors?
Date:
Message-ID: <kcLCNBe3mZm@breiing.com>
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote:
> Of course the addition of that chapter between '81 (when my hardcopy
> Chineual is from) and '84 may simply reflect the backporting of good
> ideas from Common Lisp.
Here's some circumstantial evidence to support the view that sequences
were introduced with Common Lisp. In "A Critique of Common Lisp",
Rodney Brooks and Richard Gabriel write:
The COMMON LISP definition introduces the notion of generic
sequence. [...] Many of the standard Lisp functions [...] have been
re-defined to work on any sequence, and a whole host [...] of new
functions.
I think the paper is on Gabriel's "Dreamsongs" Website.
Marcus
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Did Common Lisp introduce sequences as the union of lists and vectors?
Date:
Message-ID: <m31xq52iiz.fsf@javamonkey.com>
Marcus Breiing <············@breiing.com> writes:
> Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote:
>
> > Of course the addition of that chapter between '81 (when my hardcopy
> > Chineual is from) and '84 may simply reflect the backporting of good
> > ideas from Common Lisp.
>
> Here's some circumstantial evidence to support the view that sequences
> were introduced with Common Lisp. In "A Critique of Common Lisp",
> Rodney Brooks and Richard Gabriel write:
>
> The COMMON LISP definition introduces the notion of generic
> sequence. [...] Many of the standard Lisp functions [...] have been
> re-defined to work on any sequence, and a whole host [...] of new
> functions.
>
> I think the paper is on Gabriel's "Dreamsongs" Website.
Yup. I had read it but not when I was thinking about this question.
Thanks for the pointer.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp