Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.bu.edu!gw1.att.com!nntpa!nntpa.cb.att.com!lgm
From: lgm@polaris.ih.att.com (Lawrence G. Mayka)
Subject: Re: Renaming lisp: a suggestion (was: Re: aesthetics of multiple-value-bind (was Re: Urgent! Help! Return more than one argument.))
In-Reply-To: mcdonald@kestrel.edu's message of Thu, 22 Dec 1994 21:26:10 GMT
Message-ID: <LGM.94Dec23075518@polaris.ih.att.com>
Sender: news@nntpa.cb.att.com (Netnews Administration)
Nntp-Posting-Host: polaris.ih.att.com
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Naperville, Illinois, USA
References: <D0JGt5.G0@rheged.dircon.co.uk> <19941212T054916Z.enag@naggum.no>
	<D0rs6v.1q0@rheged.dircon.co.uk> <1994Dec18.002643.11722@Princeton.EDU>
	<1994Dec22.212610.25386@kestrel.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 1994 13:55:18 GMT
Lines: 33

In article <1994Dec22.212610.25386@kestrel.edu> mcdonald@kestrel.edu (Jim McDonald) writes:

   In article <1994Dec18.002643.11722@Princeton.EDU>, eliot@tucson.princeton.edu (Eliot Handelman) writes:
   |> simon@rheged.dircon.co.uk (Simon Brooke) wrote:
   |> 
   |> ;Fair enough, you're entitled... de gustibus nil disputandem est, or
   |> ;some such thing (my latin is even worse than my LisP).
   |> 
   |> "LisP" is rather smalltalkish, is it not? After all we do not write
   |> "MultiValBind." We spell it out, using hyphens. Why then tolerate
   |> the obscure condensation of "Lisp," really a remnant of an older coding
   |> practice that gave functions indecipherable names like "frp" and "dwt,"
   |> and instead call lisp "LIST-PROCESSOR"? This is my suggestion.

   I think your suggestion inadvertently does point out a problem 
   with "LISP" as a name.  It is mnemonic for the lisp processing
   portion of the language, but doesn't directly allude to the role
   played by lambda.  If one were to rename lisp, "list-processor"
   is probably the last name I would choose, because it would only
   perpetuate this misleading impression people get of the language.

   Being 1/8 serious, I would rather suggest "FIRST-CLASS" to allude
   to the flexible manner in which lisp treats code and environements.

That really =is= a good name.  If we rename ANSI Common Lisp to be
FirstClass, we could probably double our usership within a year.
(Half-serious!)
--
        Lawrence G. Mayka
        AT&T Bell Laboratories
        lgm@ieain.att.com

Standard disclaimer.
