Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!uknet!festival!edcogsci!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Lisp: A tower of babble?
Message-ID: <Cy6wzs.8ov@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: usenet@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (C News Software)
Nntp-Posting-Host: bute-alter.aiai.ed.ac.uk
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
References: <Cxxwx0.1nC@rheged.dircon.co.uk> <Cy1H5H.5I8@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <MIKE.94Oct23195425@majestix.cs.uoregon.edu>
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 18:35:52 GMT
Lines: 37

In article <MIKE.94Oct23195425@majestix.cs.uoregon.edu> mike@majestix.cs.uoregon.edu (Mike Haertel) writes:
>In article <Cy1H5H.5I8@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>The idea that Lisp is a single language has done -- and is doing --
>>tremendous damage.
>
>However, one could also argue that the absence of a single "Lisp"
>has done a tremendous amount of damage.

But why?  Has the absence of a single Algol-style language caused a
lot of damage?  I don't think so.  Instead, it's made it easier for
innovation to occur.  It's also meant that when there are problems
with one such language -- PL/I, say -- people don't assume that all
such languages have the same problems.  To a large extent, new
Algol-style languages can make a new start, free of prejudice.

Now, I don't think vague talk of "Lisp" (meaning any of a range
of languages) and "dialects of Lisp" (which fails to call them
distinct languages) did all that much harm in the past.  "Lisp
is a ball of mud", and so forth.

But we're suffering big time for it now, because people are
going around saying all kinds of things about "Lisp" that are
true only of particular varieties of Lisp or of particular
implementations.  The things they're saying are *not* favorable.

Moreover, Lisp simply doesn't have the usual properties of a
programming language.  (You can't, for instance, say what the
scoping rules are.)  Individual kinds of Lisp do.  Therefore
Lisp is not a programming language.  Instead, it's a language
family.

>But then, of course, the argument rages: Whose lisp?

That argument assumes there can be only one.

-- jeff

