LISP: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big

[patl@goldfish.mitron.tek.com (Patrick Logan)]

   Date: Fri, 4 Dec 92 08:26:02 -0500
   From: brent@amber.ssd.csd.harris.COM (Brent W. Benson)
   fhd@panix.com (Frank Deutschmann) writes:
   >> 3) Why seperate the developmet environment from the language?

   > Here are two reasons I feel are important, one of which you
   > mentioned.

   >        o delivery - you don't want to deliver the environment.  At
   >        some point you need to deliver an application and make the
   >        break between environment and language.  Why not specify that
   >        break up front?  While some Lisp systems provide ways to trim
   >        down a Lisp image, it's not the same as producing a .o file
   >        that can be linked with other languages that follow certain
   >        conventions.

Some applications are better when the environment is included in the
delivery. The most prominent example may be GNU Emacs.

   >        o flexibility - it's not clear that the same development
   >        environment will work on every machine that one might program
   >        in Dylan.  Requiring a certain type of environment might
   >        restrict the spread of the language (sounds like a virus or
   >        something :-).

I agree that it isn't necessary (at this time, anyway) to make too
many requirements about the development environment. Certainly
developing using a Newton-like device, it would have to be different
in some ways from developing using a Mac IIfx. At the same time, I
would probably prefer to develop applications for a Newton-like device
as well as for Macintosh using the Mac IIfx within the same
environment.

   > I would highly recommend the article "Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How
   > to Win Big" by Richard Gabriel of Lucid.  It's available in LaTeX form
   > by anonymous ftp from bongo.garnet.cs.cmu.edu in /pub/good-bad-win.

GNU Emacs is an interesting example in regard to this paper. It is
very close to being "the right thing" and it has spread on top of the
viruses that are Unix and C.

I think this is because it corresponds to the point from my previous
post to the scheme list: it fits in with the Unix and C world well
enough and is a demonstrable success story of using LISP.
--
Patrick Logan         patl@goldfish.mitron.tek.com
Mitron Corporation    (503) 690-8350    FAX: (503) 690-9292
15256 NW Greenbrier Pkwy, Beaverton, OR 97006