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Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

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Re: Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

#21

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

pjmlp wrote: post #17
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what your point is... If you're saying I'm resistant to new ideas, perhaps, to some degree. My point was more that if you want to make people receptive to a new idea, slamming them as ignorant fools for not knowing about it already, or condescending to them for not immediately genuflecting before it isn't the best approach.

The point being that we have seen the future like Bret puts it, and are to certain extent disappointed that the industry keeps doing left turns. Many C++ users are finally enjoying environments like Clion and incremental compilers, well this was a C++ environment in 1993: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQQTScuApWk Built on top of Lucid Common Lisp infrastructure, as Lucid pivoted their business to C++. IBM had a sim…

Fair enough. And it is irritating, I won't lie. We're too perf-obsessed for our own good. But complaining about it, or condescending the way many do, won't do any good: Either you're preaching to the choir, or you're irritating people, thus making them less likely to listen to you (sometimes both in one person, like me. But then, I took a while to come around on a lot of this stuff).

If you want a future, build it. If you're already doing it, keep doing so, and find ways to win people over, not alienate them.

By the way, almost none of this is aimed directly at you...

Re: Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

#22

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

lispm wrote: post #11
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that, but telling everybody who expresses any preference for any system that system X is obviously far superior is really annoying.

Nobody does that. But for certain areas this is true and you should not ignore that. Grady Booch once at an Eclipse conference: "For those of you looking at the future of development environments, I encourage you to go back and review some of the Xerox documentation for InterLisp-D."

...Well, you do. And so do many other Lispers, for that matter. IIRC, I've been guilty of it myself.

Re: Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

#23

Post by behnamoh »

noahm wrote: post #15

I used to work with a number of LISP machine believers at the MIT AI Lab/CSAIL. They all had more modern computers for day to day tasks, but used the lispm for most of their programming. This wasn't that long ago (I left in 2010), and I suspect that those machines will remain in active use for as long as people can keep them running. They all believed that the loss of the lisp machine was a serious loss to society an…

> The superior technology is rarely the "winner"

True dat. Unfortunately, as Theo de Raadt once said:

"In some industry markets, high quality can be tied to making more money, but I am sure by now all of us know the computer industry is not like that."

I think the only thing we can do is follow the trend. This whole industry is not perfect anyway.

Re: Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

#24

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

noahm wrote: post #15

I used to work with a number of LISP machine believers at the MIT AI Lab/CSAIL. They all had more modern computers for day to day tasks, but used the lispm for most of their programming. This wasn't that long ago (I left in 2010), and I suspect that those machines will remain in active use for as long as people can keep them running. They all believed that the loss of the lisp machine was a serious loss to society an…

The blub paradox would indicate that you wouldn't recognize it.

Richard P. Gabriel's famous "Lisp: The Good News, The Bad News, And How To Win Big" (aka "Worse is Better") discusses this very thing. I'd reccomend reading it.

But frankly, it's hard to say that an environment is objectively better. What one person may view as a step up, another may view as a step down, and we all have a kneejerk reaction to unfamiliar environments. The lispm is a really nice environment, to be sure, but I'll likely never know if it's better. Emacs will have to be good enough (which it certainly is).

Re: Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

#25

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

behnamoh wrote: post #23
noahm wrote: post #15

I used to work with a number of LISP machine believers at the MIT AI Lab/CSAIL. They all had more modern computers for day to day tasks, but used the lispm for most of their programming. This wasn't that long ago (I left in 2010), and I suspect that those machines will remain in active use for as long as people can keep them running. They all believed that the loss of the lisp machine was a serious loss to society an…

> The superior technology is rarely the "winner" True dat. Unfortunately, as Theo de Raadt once said: "In some industry markets, high quality can be tied to making more money, but I am sure by now all of us know the computer industry is not like that." I think the only thing we can do is follow the trend. This whole industry is not perfect anyway.

We can do more than that. If everybody followed the trend, then Lisp would be dead, and we'd all just write Java.

shivers

Re: Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

#26

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

yomly wrote: post #20
mordocai wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is functional(and maybe if not), you can potentially get a decent amount of money from selling that.

Well it certainly isn't imperative!

...yes, it is. Lisp is a multiparadigm language. Most lispms where programmed using a mixture of OO and procedural code, with a bit of FP here and there.

Re: Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

#27

Post by behnamoh »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #25
behnamoh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The superior technology is rarely the "winner" True dat. Unfortunately, as Theo de Raadt once said: "In some industry markets, high quality can be tied to making more money, but I am sure by now all of us know the computer industry is not like that." I think the only thing we can do is follow the trend. This whole industry is not perfect anyway.

We can do more than that. If everybody followed the trend, then Lisp would be dead, and we'd all just write Java. shivers

I used to think likewise (you can check my previous comments). But at the end of the day, you gotta pay the bills...

Nonetheless, I have huge respect for CL. I think I'm gonna learn it well once and for all. (maybe use it for back-end).

Re: Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

#28

Post by lispm »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #22
lispm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody does that. But for certain areas this is true and you should not ignore that. Grady Booch once at an Eclipse conference: "For those of you looking at the future of development environments, I encourage you to go back and review some of the Xerox documentation for InterLisp-D."

...Well, you do. And so do many other Lispers, for that matter. IIRC, I've been guilty of it myself.

I don't.

Re: Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

#29

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

behnamoh wrote: post #27
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can do more than that. If everybody followed the trend, then Lisp would be dead, and we'd all just write Java. shivers

I used to think likewise (you can check my previous comments). But at the end of the day, you gotta pay the bills... Nonetheless, I have huge respect for CL. I think I'm gonna learn it well once and for all. (maybe use it for back-end).

True 'nuff.

I prefer Scheme to CL. The tooling isn't as developed, but Chicken and Guile are both plenty usable, and Scheme is less crufty than CL.

Re: Symbolics Lisp Machine Museum

#30

Post by lispm »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #19
lispm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't think it matters as much as you do. I said as much. There is a lot of software out there which needs powerful and/or different IDEs to be written. > Although it is telling that SLIME (which is excellent, by the way) is one of the most popular ways to write Lisp code. Guess where the inspiration for some of the SLIME features is coming from... Slime also does many cool new things, but it is still missin…

I am well aware of where SLIME's inspiration comes from. As for IDEs, I have a marked distaste for special purpose tools: I want to be able to use on tool to edit all text. And not all IDEs are good: IntelliJ is pretty rubbish (although that's more to do with Java than IJ itself...) Emacs's limitations tend to line up with the length you can go before you start becoming a special purpose tool, tightly tied to your en…

> I am well aware of where SLIME's inspiration comes from.

Obviously not. SLIME's inspiration comes from various other integrations of Lisp into Emacs editors, especially Emacs Lisp and ILISP. SOME of its inspirations comes from the Lisp Machine, direct or indirect. SOME. Not ALL and not even MOST. For example the Lisp Machine does NOT use Zmacs as a Lisp REPL, like ILISP/SLIME/... does. The Lisp Machine has a REPL, which is called a 'Listener', which is a separate application and which is not based on a Zmacs editor buffer. The Lisp Machine listener has a very different feature set and look&feel, from an ILISP/SLIME repl.

The LispWorks listener is a mix of both: it is based on an Emacs substrate, but offers slightly more Lisp Machine like interaction. SLIME though adds a simple presentation system, which LispWorks does not use in the listener.

> I want to be able to use on tool to edit all text.

A Lisp system is not text-based.

Lisp is based on data. Code is data and data can be code.

Using an editor to work with text is only half of the story. A good Lisp IDE lets me more or less directly interact with the data.

Interlisp-D worked with Lisp data throughout the IDE. That's a whole different interaction.

> IntelliJ is pretty rubbish

It isn't. It's actually quite good at what it does.

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