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Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

hanshuebner.github.io

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Re: Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

#31

Post by criddell »

hoodoof wrote: post #24
fao_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more mainstream than the $NEW-AWESOME-JAVASCRIPT-FRAMEWORK. Not being mainstream doesn't mean that something isn't awesome. There are lots of awesome discoveries trapped in research/academia because the overton window of the current technology community is shifted too far to "What I am used to", or because nobody cares to look. Eventually some of these ideas will get dislodged and fall down to us, but you can't…

>>> It's more mainstream than the $NEW-AWESOME-JAVASCRIPT-FRAMEWORK. This sentence doesn't make any sense. "Mainstream" means used alot - widespread acceptance. Lisp is #33 on Tiobe after Cobol, Foxpro, Fortran and Ada. How you can compare that to the takeup of the latest JS nframeworks I don't really understand. https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ 21 SAS 1.372% 22 Dart 1.306% 23 D 1.103% 24 Transact-SQL 1.075% 25 ABA…

I was just looking at that same list. I'm surprised Lua is that low considering how many applications embed it.

Re: Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

#32

Post by AdeptusAquinas »

dwheeler wrote: post #21
hoodoof wrote: post #2

There seems to be plenty of people who think Lisp is awesome. If so, then why hasn't it become "mainstream"?

Asbestos suit on. There are many positive things you can say about Lisp. However, many day-to-day developers, and their managers, believe that Lisp's syntax creates nigh-unreadable programs. For example, there's no built-in infix syntax, as opposed to practically all other programming languages, and many modern programmers today expect infix as minimum table stakes for a language. Lisp syntax is extremely simple , bu…

As a day-to-day developer, but one who wants to learn as much as I can outside of my domain, you are spot on.

I generally work in an OO language (C# specifically) and have long wanted to get into functional programming. I am finally making headway, but after false starts in lisp (racket, clojure) ultimately I am using F#. Partially, admittedly, due to the .NET aspect (its even shipped as part of default dotnet core) but also because of the lack of parenthesis.

One of the reasons to go functional was to get away from the excessive syntax and formality of a C-based language, and replacing every curly bracket with 20 parenthesis (minor hyperbole) doesn't achieve that for me.

Re: Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

#33

Post by Animats »

pjmlp wrote: post #11
hoodoof wrote: post #2

There seems to be plenty of people who think Lisp is awesome. If so, then why hasn't it become "mainstream"?

Lisp workstations were quite expensive with proprietary source code, while UNIX workstation were built on source code available almost for free (AT&T could not sell it so they licensed it for a symbolic price), which made them cheaper to sell. Also the companies involved in selling Lisp machines did quite a few management errors.

Ask anyone who owned a Symbolics 3600, a single-user machine the size of a refrigerator. Overpriced hardware. Poor maintenance service and low hardware reliability. A level of company arrogance seldom seen in a small company. (They thought they were going to rule AI. Didn't happen.) And, originally, 45-minute garbage collections. (Virtual memory plus slow disk plus naive garbage collection.)

What really killed them was decent LISP compilers for mainstream CPUs. LISP doesn't really need special hardware with tag bits.

Re: Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

#34

Post by willismichael »

patrickmay wrote: post #17
hoodoof wrote: post #2

There seems to be plenty of people who think Lisp is awesome. If so, then why hasn't it become "mainstream"?

Because Brendan Eich's management lied to him about allowing him to do Scheme in the browser: https://brendaneich.com/2008/04/popularity/ When I think of what web programming could have been like, it makes me want to weep.

I also dream of what it would be like if lisp in the browser had become mainstream, but it's possible that if he had implemented it like he wanted to, it wouldn't have received such wide spread adoption like javascript did.

Re: Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

#35

Post by [deleted] »

taeric wrote: post #30
dwheeler wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asbestos suit on. There are many positive things you can say about Lisp. However, many day-to-day developers, and their managers, believe that Lisp's syntax creates nigh-unreadable programs. For example, there's no built-in infix syntax, as opposed to practically all other programming languages, and many modern programmers today expect infix as minimum table stakes for a language. Lisp syntax is extremely simple , bu…

I don't even disagree on the infix math point, really. I do find it awkward that it makes up a small fraction of what you actually do in most programs. Seems odd that such a minorly applicable point holds such high regard. Sadly, I assert that this being the main irritation of LISP is one more of fashion than it is of actual applicability. Sad, because I do have pride in our communities to want them to be above fashi…

[deleted]

Re: Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

#36

Post by AnimalMuppet »

fusiongyro wrote: post #18
hoodoof wrote: post #2

There seems to be plenty of people who think Lisp is awesome. If so, then why hasn't it become "mainstream"?

A more powerful language is not enough of an advantage to defeat entrenched alternatives with strong network effects. There isn't a reason why language X is not entrenched, but there are historical reasons why C, C++ and Java are entrenched. Lisp just isn't enough more powerful than them to beat their home-court advantage. I guess I'd say, Lisp might be 10x better, but the network effects are orders of magnitude more…

> Lisp just isn't enough more powerful than them to beat their home-court advantage.

Note, however, that Lisp had a 10 year head start on C. Lisp had the home-court advantage, and C ate its lunch anyway.

Re: Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

#37

Post by progman »

hoodoof wrote: post #2

There seems to be plenty of people who think Lisp is awesome. If so, then why hasn't it become "mainstream"?

Excellent languages like Lisp, Haskell, Ada, etc., maybe also Rust and Nim, will likely never be mainstream since they offer a lot of features which require a lot of discipline by the programmer.

Companies want mediocre developers for mediocre languages (Java, C++, C#, etc.) because mediocre developers can be replaced easily, and because they get lower salary due to great competition.

Mediocre languages are just good enough to implement the things which need to be done. All their features are comprehensible by mediocre developers. That's another reason why only mediocre languages become mainstream.

Re: Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

#38

Post by pjmlp »

Animats wrote: post #33
pjmlp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lisp workstations were quite expensive with proprietary source code, while UNIX workstation were built on source code available almost for free (AT&T could not sell it so they licensed it for a symbolic price), which made them cheaper to sell. Also the companies involved in selling Lisp machines did quite a few management errors.

Ask anyone who owned a Symbolics 3600, a single-user machine the size of a refrigerator. Overpriced hardware. Poor maintenance service and low hardware reliability. A level of company arrogance seldom seen in a small company. (They thought they were going to rule AI. Didn't happen.) And, originally, 45-minute garbage collections. (Virtual memory plus slow disk plus naive garbage collection.) What really killed them w…

Yes, that is what I meant with management errors.

Re: Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

#39

Post by shawn »

dwheeler wrote: post #21
hoodoof wrote: post #2

There seems to be plenty of people who think Lisp is awesome. If so, then why hasn't it become "mainstream"?

Asbestos suit on. There are many positive things you can say about Lisp. However, many day-to-day developers, and their managers, believe that Lisp's syntax creates nigh-unreadable programs. For example, there's no built-in infix syntax, as opposed to practically all other programming languages, and many modern programmers today expect infix as minimum table stakes for a language. Lisp syntax is extremely simple , bu…

For example, lisp has no built-in infix syntax

I wrote one: https://github.com/shawwn/lumen/blob/6aa017cfd90fba381b6ea1d...

https://github.com/shawwn/lumen/blob/6aa017cfd90fba381b6ea1d...

It's an experimental feature, but it seems to work fine with no ambiguities. It also has "x = 42" for implicit local variables, rather than "(let x 42 ...)"

What do you think of it? Is it much more readable? I'm still debating whether to keep it.

Re: Lisp Machine Manual (1984)

#40

Post by adrianm »

Animats wrote: post #22
fusiongyro wrote: post #8

The classic joke in here is that if you look up "fascism" in the index, it goes to the section about logging in. User authentication wasn't part of the dream, so having been forced to build it, they embedded a dig on it right in the manual. https://hanshuebner.github.io/lmman/files.xml#fascism I think there are a few other jokes in the index but I don't recall what they are.

That was probably Stallman's doing. He wrote most of the LISP machine code.

The other side of the argument.

https://danluu.com/symbolics-lisp-machines/

Also interesting bits about the fall of Symbolics, the AI winter, and why Lisp adoption waned as a result.

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