using Lisp in astronomical data analysis

[hmadorf@eso.org]

To those of you interested and/or engaged in Lisp for scientific
computing ...
 
Here is a verbatim quotation  that I just received from a key person in 
the AIPS++ project of the National Radio Astronomical Observatory (NRAO).
AIPS is a major radio astronomical image processing system. AIPS++ is
its rewrite in a modern language.

"There were two serious candidates for aips++ and one "dark horse" 
Fortran90, C++, and Eiffel. One goal of AIPS++ is to allow casual 
astronomer/programmers to more easily try out new algorithms than in the 
existing AIPS1 system. The decision to adopt a fairly conventional 
language like C++ was controversial enough; a "weird" language like lisp 
would have been impossible to sell to our conservative audience."

Hans-Martin Adorf
ST-ECF/ESO
Garching b. Muenchen