Re: A Dylan implemented on Common Lisp

[eliot@cs.umass.edu (CHRISTOPHER ELIOT)]

In article <gclement-0903950833460001@155.50.21.58> gclement@keps.com (Geoffrey Clements) writes:
>In article <3jirll$r0g@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu>, sef@CS.CMU.EDU (Scott
>Fahlman) wrote:
>
>And a lot of non-Lispers think this is true also. Some of us non-Lispers
>don't like Lisp because it has too many parentheses. I don't have that
>problem. I just have trouble sseing what it is good for. 

[...]

>In Dylan I see a language that feels like a static language that has
>borrowed all the best features of Lisp. This makes it attractive as a more
>general programming language. A language like C makes a good application
>programming language. But try writting an expert system in it. Conversely,
>Lisp is a great language to write AI type programs in. But try writing a
>word processor with it. 

I *have* written a word processor in Lisp. It was far more customizable
and extensible than any "modern" word processor. This was before CL
and bitmapped displays, so it did not handle things like multiple
fonts, but it could have.

Basically, if you have a language in which you can write programs
that model human reasoning, you can model anything.

>It would be just as easy to write a word processor
>in Dylan as it is to do in C. And it would be just as easy to write an
>expert system in Dyaln as it is in Lisp.

>geoff
>gclements@keps.com

Personally, I'm not happy with anything that does not have prefix
notation.

-Chris Eliot