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From: vfr750@netcom.com (Will Hartung)
Subject: Re: Microsoft Common Lisp?
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Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 00:43:01 GMT
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wware@world.std.com (Will Ware) writes:

>If MS came out with a Visual Common Lisp, it would violently thrust Lisp
>into common usage. 

Do you really think so? Is it the belief that MS merely has to stamp
something with its brand, and it instantly becomes accessible and
popular?

I'll grant that MS has great marketing, makes savy business deals, and
tends to stick to its guns when swaying the market, but its brand name
isn't all powerful.

I'm going to flick on the wayback machine and have it set to the early
80's.

Microcomputers were coming into their own, we had a plethora of
different "home" computers, and CPM was powering the bleeding edge
micro-business solutions.

Rogue HAM radio and Model Raliroading geeks were buried in their
basements, with their heads swimming in clouds of solder smoke, trying
to get their own franken-puters Alive(!).

Memory was scarce, mass storage was rated in "minutes" rather than
megabytes. Assembly language was the gurus choice...at least until
they could get ... BASIC.

For whatever reason, the micro-cpu world grabbed hold of BASIC, in
some form, and ran off into the night laughing. Was it because Gates
and Co. did the initial port to the Altair? Making it a readily
available high-level language for anyone calling? I don't know.

I do know that in 1977, Radio Shack sold their Model I computer with
4K and BASIC (MS-BASIC I might add) in ROM. Soon after, just about
every single pre-built standalone computer being sold had BASIC of
some kind. Apple, Commodore, Exidy, Ohio Scientific, Atari...even
Sinclair. 

BASIC was being used to write zillions of vertical apps on CPM
machines. And every consumer computer magazine was dedicating pages
and pages to BASIC code listings.

Oh sure, there were other languages. FORTRAN and COBOL were being
ported. I remeber fighting with TRS-80 FORTRAN, but couldn't make
heads or tails because all of the books were talking about cards
readers and tape drives. I just wanted INPUT and PRINT.

Now, how many folks do you think had their first exposure to a
computer come from a home computer running BASIC? How many of these
skilled and erudite pundits in the press came up through the ranks of
Apples and Trash-80's? How many folks do you think may consider it a
crime that W95 dropped QBASIC...finally!

PC's were the next big thing, and it brought to life a product that
was simmering on CPM machines...Turbo Pascal. Who could go wrong for
$29? And how people complained about Pascal vs BASIC.

But Borland prevailed, getting a lot of mindshare and press with Turbo
Pascal.

In its heyday, there was Turbo Pascal, some C compilers, Modula-2,
etc. Anyone know that Borland created a Turbo Modula-2? They did, but
it didn't go anywhere and was sold off. FORTH, BASIC, Methods (early
Smalltalk V), etc. Bunches of languages. 

There was Computer Languages magazine, Dr. Dobbs in its prime,
everything.

Borland came out with their product "Turbo Prolog". Big Name company,
nice system, WIERD language. No doubt in the midst of the AI hype. 

Borland had more Language mindshare than MS did, was MS as focusing on
applications really, and did Prolog become the great redeemer? 

No.

Now, maybe the implementation had lots of problems, I don't know.
Maybe Borland was too mainstream to market Prolog effectively. Perhaps
the systems were too limited to really let Prolog spread its wings and
fly.

But for whatever reason, Turbo Prolog died a nameless death.

Right now, the only languages that any real mindshare in the computing
populace are BASIC and C. The folks that would have learned BASIC on
their home computers in the past (because it was there), are now
choosing between VB or VC++...for a first language. Can you imagine
installing VC++ and going through a book "C++ in 21 days" to learn
programming? EGADS!

The best thing that MS could do with Lisp, is turn it into a COMPILED
BATCH module alternative for their C++ development system, and bundle
it with VC++. Enabling folks to do mixed language development. Putting
it instantly into the hands of a zillion developers. Whether they use
it or not, at least they now have a "Lisp" book sitting on their
shelf...err...CD.

A standalone version of MSCL would be considered as a niche product for
niche applications, and thereby ignored by the mainstream.

The press and the people would ask "Why do we need another language?
We got C for the fast stuff, and VB for the easy stuff! Why muddy the
waters?"

I downloaded a little program that someone wrote using VC++ from the
net. It was a utility for a board game. It was about 6MB of stuff.
300K of code, and the rest DLLs. MS supplied DLLs, including the
installer. I was horrified. "C++ makes small EXEs!" Harumph!

LISP is great for poking around and programming little things. It is
good for programming "interesting programs". It handles BIG stuff
pretty well. It is rich in its vast utilities, yet simple at its core
(save for, say, CLOS :-)).

MSs blessing of something does not make it "good", it does not make it
"better". About the only think that MSs blessing does for something is
make it available, and, perhaps, cheap.

And that's what people expect from MS. They want some full color
glossies, and they want it cheap. MS can do that, Bill could probably
fund that effort from the spare change on his dresser.

Visual CL exists today, in ACLs package. Cyber Surfer would like
better connectivity to Windows stuff. I think they should offer ODBC
out of the box (on their sampler CD), along with a decent DB Sample
App. It could also use a Source Code debugger/stepper.

Do that, and then bundle it in one of those "Free CD" issues with some
reasonable magazine shouting "FREE DYNAMIC OBJECT SYSTEM INSIDE". 

But, Franz doesn't have the change that Bill has. It would be rather
expensive to pull off the advertisement, trying to promote a language
that is unlike everything else. 

C++ and VB are easy to like, because "everybody" likes it. Its easy to
drift into the crowd and chant "Me TOO!". Its easy for beginners and
amateurs because MOST programmers are beginners. MOST programmers know
not what they do. They don't know why they bump into the limits they
do, because most are cook book, cut and paste programmers. They don't
do this for fun. Its not really interesting, just more interesting
than being a bank clerk or an auto mechanic. They'd rather be a
computer mechanic...less dirt under the finger nails. 9 to 5
programmers. Their interests lie elsewhere. 

You can be a 9 to 5 programmer in Lisp, or anything else. If you don't
care about what you're coding, they you don't care about what you're
coding in. People work because they have to, not because they want to.
People code because its their job. If they're changing languages, its
because they want a new job. "I should learn XYZ so I can be more
marketable!".

I think LISPs next area should be intruding into the realm of Power
Builder and its ilk. These "4GLs" are mostly pretty horrible little
idiot savant languages that has easy access to databases. LISP should
mosey up next to Smalltalk, put its head down, and try to break
through.

MS could do something like this, but it would be at the expense of VB.
Pushing VB is good for MS because all of MS Office now has VB,
and VB is tight with W95. So, apps written in MSVB can easily leverage
MS Office on MS Windows. Of course, you can extend MS VB with MS C++.
The whole goal of MS is to sell MS stuff, and now that they have a
hard lock down on what 99% of the users do 99% of the time on 99% of
the computers, I don't see them rocking the boat much soon.

Umm, IMHO of course.


-- 
Will Hartung - Rancho Santa Margarita. It's a dry heat. vfr750@netcom.com
1990 VFR750 - VFR=Very Red    "Ho, HaHa, Dodge, Parry, Spin, HA! THRUST!"
1993 Explorer - Cage? Hell, it's a prison.                    -D. Duck
