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Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

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Re: Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

#71

Post by mianos »

sbf501 wrote: post #67

266 pages of well-written, edited, fact-checked electronics and computer programming. Monthly. Let that sink in. There is so much good info packed into this one issue, it is worth terabytes of crap on stack overflow. Clearly there was less information back then, but it was far higher quality. I'd like to understand how C came to dominate the world when LISP could replace all of the scripting languages we used today.…

C is much closer to the machine and very fast. When I learnt C I went to the book store. There were two C books (K&R and Byte Books C) and one Lisp book. I learnt both. Lisp was fun but, at the time, I never appreciated the introspection. It was only when, a long long time later, I learnt Python and remembered the ability to iterate the elements of a class and thought how handy that was for some programs.

C could more easily access the lower level resources as well.

I still wonder why one of these, like forth, lisp later Python did not become the standard command line interpreters whereas it would never have been C, and I have written very featured C interpreters.

Re: Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

#72

Post by podiki »

I never noticed before when this link has come up, but it lists a rescan in the description: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1979-08-rescan

In my quick view, this is more cleaned up and easier to read at smaller sizes. (You might lose some of that "old magazine" feel, if you prefer that, though.)

Re: Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

#73

Post by sriku »

susam wrote: post #8

The first article in this issue of BYTE has a very interesting characterization of Lisp that I have not come across before. I mean, famous quotes like "Lisp is a programmable programming language" by John Foderaro and "The greatest single programming language ever designed" by Alan Kay are often mentioned in articles about Lisp. But in this issue of BYTE, the article "An Overview of LISP" by John Allen at page 10 has…

Would that description have been influenced by symbolics and such systems? It is pretty spot on but perhaps more true of those systems than of today's lisps.

Re: Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

#74

Post by bmitc »

PaulHoule wrote: post #59
bmitc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The LOGO system supports two different (by no means disjoint) environments: the Turtle, Graphics and Musicbox world (ie: peripheral devices which are controlled by a command language) and the LISP world." Whelp, the lack of an Oxford comma there really through me for a loop until I continued reading. Anyway... > "Our experiences, especially with young students, indicate that programming in LOGO may serve as a brid…

Scratch was produced at MIT just like Logo and I think it is an evolution of what they were trying to do with Logo.

Despite the heritage of the creators, I personally view Scratch as a misstep. I am a big fan of visual programming, but Scratch is essentially an everyday imperative language with a structured editor and sprites. It doesn't maintain any of the simplicity or elegance of Logo or Lisp, and I'm honestly a bit surprised that the MIT Media Lab invests so much in it.

Re: Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

#75

Post by hota_mazi »

sbf501 wrote: post #67

266 pages of well-written, edited, fact-checked electronics and computer programming. Monthly. Let that sink in. There is so much good info packed into this one issue, it is worth terabytes of crap on stack overflow. Clearly there was less information back then, but it was far higher quality. I'd like to understand how C came to dominate the world when LISP could replace all of the scripting languages we used today.…

To be fair, out of these 256 pages, 200 are really just ads.

Your point still stands, but the actual substance is a lot smaller than you describe.

Re: Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

#76

Post by hota_mazi »

bmitc wrote: post #55
susam wrote: post #13

The second article in this issue of BYTE has a delightful mention of Logo (the programming language). On page 20, it says, "LOGO is, up to surface structure, more or less equivalent to LISP." It further says, "The LOGO system supports two different (by no means disjoint ) environments: the Turtle, Graphics and Musicbox world (ie: peripheral devices which are controlled by a command language) and the LISP world." And…

> "The LOGO system supports two different (by no means disjoint) environments: the Turtle, Graphics and Musicbox world (ie: peripheral devices which are controlled by a command language) and the LISP world." Whelp, the lack of an Oxford comma there really through me for a loop until I continued reading. Anyway... > "Our experiences, especially with young students, indicate that programming in LOGO may serve as a brid…

Wasn't it predictable, though?

Take a look at that issue of BYTE entirely dedicated to LOGO that was referenced multiple times in this discussion.

A dozen articles about the language, with listings. The screenshots? All the same, showing recursive pictures of rectangles and circles. Great. LOGO can do that. But what else? Big empty void there.

Contrast that with what BASIC could do at the time... Is it any wonder LOGO died out and BASIC thrived?

Re: Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

#77

Post by kazinator »

sbf501 wrote: post #67

266 pages of well-written, edited, fact-checked electronics and computer programming. Monthly. Let that sink in. There is so much good info packed into this one issue, it is worth terabytes of crap on stack overflow. Clearly there was less information back then, but it was far higher quality. I'd like to understand how C came to dominate the world when LISP could replace all of the scripting languages we used today.…

C came to dominate the world because of Unix. But not directly, because Unix didn't really dominate the world other than some of the institutional and corporate world. GNU and Linux picked up the domination torch and are still working on it.

I strongly suspect Microsoft was the catalyst which propelled C, absent of Unix.

Microsoft had been infatuated with Unix from early on. They had their own version called Xenix, based on AT&T licensed code. Part of the MS-DOS API consists of "Xenix functions", imitating some Unix-like things. MS-DOS, and consequently Windows feature Unixy conventions like .. for the parent directory and . for current, even though the underlying link concept isn't there.

Microsoft produced a C compiler + IDE which I believe highlighted and legitimized C as a viable language in the mass market world of IBM PC compatibles.

According to the Wikipedia page on Microsoft Visual C++, Microsoft already had a C compiler out in 1983.

"Microsoft C 1.0, based on Lattice C, was Microsoft's first C product in 1983. It was not K&R C compliant."

Microsoft picking up Lattice C and running with it is probably what caused the C explosion. Borland joined in the fray in 1987 with Turbo C.

But wait, Microsoft had a Lisp product too: why didn't that help?

[plain HTTP!] http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Microsoft_LISP

Probably they just didn't peddle it hard enough.

Microsoft also used C for developing Windows, and supported C development for Windows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows#Early_versio...

"Microsoft sold as included Windows Development libraries with the C development environment, which included numerous windows samples."

The rise of MS Windows dragged C with it, with the API's and code samples being expressed in C.

Plus, it was probably not lost on the PC programming population that if they learn and work with C on that platform, their skills will be applicable in Unix and elsewhere.

Re: Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

#78

Post by lbruder »

sbf501 wrote: post #67

266 pages of well-written, edited, fact-checked electronics and computer programming. Monthly. Let that sink in. There is so much good info packed into this one issue, it is worth terabytes of crap on stack overflow. Clearly there was less information back then, but it was far higher quality. I'd like to understand how C came to dominate the world when LISP could replace all of the scripting languages we used today.…

Worse is better. C and Unix were faster to implement new stuff as they were only 'good enough'. Lisp machines wanted to do everything 'right', right from the start, and were slower to implement new features. Unix was already winning by then...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better

Re: Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

#79

Post by zozbot234 »

hota_mazi wrote: post #76
bmitc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The LOGO system supports two different (by no means disjoint) environments: the Turtle, Graphics and Musicbox world (ie: peripheral devices which are controlled by a command language) and the LISP world." Whelp, the lack of an Oxford comma there really through me for a loop until I continued reading. Anyway... > "Our experiences, especially with young students, indicate that programming in LOGO may serve as a brid…

Wasn't it predictable, though? Take a look at that issue of BYTE entirely dedicated to LOGO that was referenced multiple times in this discussion. A dozen articles about the language, with listings. The screenshots? All the same, showing recursive pictures of rectangles and circles. Great. LOGO can do that. But what else? Big empty void there. Contrast that with what BASIC could do at the time... Is it any wonder LOG…

> Contrast that with what BASIC could do at the time... Is it any wonder LOGO died out and BASIC thrived?

AIUI, implementations of BASIC on home computers were a lot simpler and more straightforward than LOGO or LISP - for instance, GC in BASIC was an afterthought and only applied to strings. The real competitor to BASIC back then was FORTH.

Re: Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)

#80

Post by zozbot234 »

hota_mazi wrote: post #75
sbf501 wrote: post #67

266 pages of well-written, edited, fact-checked electronics and computer programming. Monthly. Let that sink in. There is so much good info packed into this one issue, it is worth terabytes of crap on stack overflow. Clearly there was less information back then, but it was far higher quality. I'd like to understand how C came to dominate the world when LISP could replace all of the scripting languages we used today.…

To be fair, out of these 256 pages, 200 are really just ads. Your point still stands, but the actual substance is a lot smaller than you describe.

The advertisements are among the most interesting things about old magazines like BYTE, though. They preserve a snapshot of what the computer industry was like back then. Even the pricing information alone is very valuable.
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