A brief interview with Common Lisp co-creator Dr. Scott Fahlman
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Re: A brief interview with Common Lisp co-creator Dr. Scott Fahlman
#2"What I came to understand, after years of work on Common Lisp and the death of Dylan, the ongoing popularity of the hideous C++, and the rise of Java, is that programming languages don't become mainstream based on their elegance or their deep utility. ... [T]he best languages very rarely take over, if ever. Some language starts being used because it has the backing of some big company or project, people doing similar things use it as well, positive feedback sets in, and soon it is the language everyone is using. Java is an example -- not nearly as good as Lisp on many dimensions, but it appeared at the right time for a language with some good properties for creating downloadable Internet apps. And it had the backing of Sun Microsystems, at a time when Sun was powerful. So Java became mainstream, while Common Lisp and Dylan faded away."
:-(
Re: A brief interview with Common Lisp co-creator Dr. Scott Fahlman
#3"What I came to understand, after years of work on Common Lisp and the death of Dylan, the ongoing popularity of the hideous C++, and the rise of Java, is that programming languages don't become mainstream based on their elegance or their deep utility. ... [T]he best languages very rarely take over, if ever. Some language starts being used because it has the backing of some big company or project, people doing simila…
[deleted]
Re: A brief interview with Common Lisp co-creator Dr. Scott Fahlman
#4He certainly implies that he thinks Common Lisp (and maybe Dylan) would have been as popular as Java is today if the lottery had played out differently.
I wonder if anyone else feels this way. The programming world would be a different place.
I can’t help but fantasize about how incredible eMacs would be by now if that had been the case. (Not that it isn’t already incredible.)
Re: A brief interview with Common Lisp co-creator Dr. Scott Fahlman
#5"What I came to understand, after years of work on Common Lisp and the death of Dylan, the ongoing popularity of the hideous C++, and the rise of Java, is that programming languages don't become mainstream based on their elegance or their deep utility. ... [T]he best languages very rarely take over, if ever. Some language starts being used because it has the backing of some big company or project, people doing simila…
He's overlooking an incredibly important factor:
Java and C++ had capable, even enterprise quality free compilers at a time when Common Lisp environments were typically either hideously expensive or poorly supported or both.
You could grab Sun's JDK for free, or GCC, or (later) Visual Studio Express at a time when the best options for Common Lisp were thousands of dollars per seat, or barely working on x86 (CMUCL didn't have x86 support in any capacity until after 96, and by then Java was out).
Personally, I loved lisp in the 90s, but it was just so much easier to get my hands on C and Java, and libraries to go with them. Java, C and C++ were actually available on DOS and Windows. Even today, Windows support among lisps is terrible!
Edit: I miss Turbo C, but had there been a Turbo Lisp, priced affordably and on the shelf at radio shack? We'd all be programming in lisp.
Re: A brief interview with Common Lisp co-creator Dr. Scott Fahlman
#6"What I came to understand, after years of work on Common Lisp and the death of Dylan, the ongoing popularity of the hideous C++, and the rise of Java, is that programming languages don't become mainstream based on their elegance or their deep utility. ... [T]he best languages very rarely take over, if ever. Some language starts being used because it has the backing of some big company or project, people doing simila…
The money SUN poured to support Java helped a lot, but the promise of being able to run the same "binary" on every platform (and running faster than perl, which was the other write-once-run-everywhere at the time) was also very attractive.
Re: A brief interview with Common Lisp co-creator Dr. Scott Fahlman
#7He certainly implies that he thinks Common Lisp (and maybe Dylan) would have been as popular as Java is today if the lottery had played out differently. I wonder if anyone else feels this way. The programming world would be a different place. I can’t help but fantasize about how incredible eMacs would be by now if that had been the case. (Not that it isn’t already incredible.)
If Apple had not been in financial trouble...
If Dylan had been completed in time for the NewtonOS...
If the Newton had taken off...
I mused on some some alternate histories for Common Lisp in a blog posting:
https://medium.com/@kaveh808/41-world-building-and-alternate...
Re: A brief interview with Common Lisp co-creator Dr. Scott Fahlman
#8He certainly implies that he thinks Common Lisp (and maybe Dylan) would have been as popular as Java is today if the lottery had played out differently. I wonder if anyone else feels this way. The programming world would be a different place. I can’t help but fantasize about how incredible eMacs would be by now if that had been the case. (Not that it isn’t already incredible.)
If Apple had not been in financial trouble... If Dylan had been completed in time for the NewtonOS... If the Newton had taken off... I mused on some some alternate histories for Common Lisp in a blog posting: https://medium.com/@kaveh808/41-world-building-and-alternate...
Also if the first Newton MessagePad didn't have less than 1 MB RAM. ;-) The first Newton had 640kbyte of RAM and a 20 Mhz ARM Processor. It was the result of bringing down the cost. It wasn't well received, since the handwriting recognition was bad and the machine was underpowered. The 130 model fixed the latter. In later OS versions the handwriting became useful, eventually.
I had later the wonderful Newton MessagePad 2100 with 8 MB RAM and a much improved ARM processor - I used Common Lisp on a Mac with that amount of RAM.. The 2000/2100 series would have been a perfect platform for Dylan, it even would be good enough to run a nice garbage collector.
When they discontinued the platform, we knew that it would take a lot of time, years!, for Apple to come up with a new similar mobile platform, but it eventually happened with the iPod touch and the iPhone. But those were then programmed in an object-oriented C dialect and the operating system wasn't as cool as the Newton OS.
Re: A brief interview with Common Lisp co-creator Dr. Scott Fahlman
#9"What I came to understand, after years of work on Common Lisp and the death of Dylan, the ongoing popularity of the hideous C++, and the rise of Java, is that programming languages don't become mainstream based on their elegance or their deep utility. ... [T]he best languages very rarely take over, if ever. Some language starts being used because it has the backing of some big company or project, people doing simila…
He's overlooking an incredibly important factor: Java and C++ had capable, even enterprise quality free compilers at a time when Common Lisp environments were typically either hideously expensive or poorly supported or both. You could grab Sun's JDK for free, or GCC, or (later) Visual Studio Express at a time when the best options for Common Lisp were thousands of dollars per seat, or barely working on x86 (CMUCL did…
Indeed. It took a while for a good free Common Lisp to become available. Arguably this wasn't until SBCL (initial release, December 1999).
Re: A brief interview with Common Lisp co-creator Dr. Scott Fahlman
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Apple had not been in financial trouble... If Dylan had been completed in time for the NewtonOS... If the Newton had taken off... I mused on some some alternate histories for Common Lisp in a blog posting: https://medium.com/@kaveh808/41-world-building-and-alternate...
Also if the first Newton MessagePad didn't have less than 1 MB RAM. ;-) The first Newton had 640kbyte of RAM and a 20 Mhz ARM Processor. It was the result of bringing down the cost. It wasn't well received, since the handwriting recognition was bad and the machine was underpowered. The 130 model fixed the latter. In later OS versions the handwriting became useful, eventually. I had later the wonderful Newton MessageP…
I agree. I bought a Newton after having lunch with Larry Tesler (John Kona also dined with us, a fun lunch!). Larry was pitching me on converting my first Common Lisp book to Dylan.
I ended up just tossing my Newton in the trash. Sad.