Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!dircon!rheged!simon
From: simon@rheged.dircon.co.uk (Simon Brooke)
Subject: Rumours of my death are much exaggerated (was Re: Common Lisp' dual name space)
Message-ID: <CyJzsA.xw@rheged.dircon.co.uk>
Summary: We shouldn't kick LisP just 'cos we don't like CL.
Organization: none. Disorganization: total.
References: <19941029T053722Z.enag@naggum.no> <38u0n4$9qb@tools.near.net> <391dts$onj@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> <19941031T111542Z.enag@naggum.no>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 1994 20:04:56 GMT
Lines: 38

In article <19941031T111542Z.enag@naggum.no>,
Erik Naggum  <erik@naggum.no> wrote:
>Anthony Berglas
>
>|   Given that the lisp community is dying, the last thing that is required
>|   is it to be split for trivial reasons like this.
>
>it's dying?  really?  well, some claim the planet is dying, too, and
>methinks it's going to hang round for another few billion years.  adjusted
>for scale, the same seems to apply to LISP.  those who care for the planet
>thinks it will help if we clean it up.  LISP has been cleaned up a lot with
>ANSI Common LISP.

Dying is an odd word to use, but there is a serious point here. Some
form of LisP might have become the default language for the
development of complex modern software that C++ seems to have become;
it has not. Most readers of this group (I suspect) feel that this is
unfortunate. Consequently LisP is in danger of shrinking into wilderness
niches as populations displaced from the green pastures tend to do.

Part of the reason has probably been our internecine strife. Given
this; given that Common LISP, however much it may for each of us
individually not be our ideal language, is *a* standard, and a *not
unreasonable* standard, I think it probably behoves us to rally round
it now and make the best possible implementations we can available as
widely as we can. I have to confess this leaves a fairly bitter taste
in my mouth, but better Common LISP than no widely available LisP.
Then we can work on developing better LisPs (each in our different
preferred directions) in an environment in which the idea of using a
LisP family language does not have to be defended in itself.



-- 
--------simon@rheged.dircon.co.uk

	to err is human, to lisp divine
				 ;; attributed to Kim Philby, oddly enough.
