Re: Am I the insane one or what?

[Steven M Rezsutek <steve@baloo.gsfc.nasa.gov>]

> >                                                                   I think
> >   we users of LISP and SMBX need to slow down and drop a few crumbs of
> >   what we may know to be pale shadows of the "real" thing so that the mass
> >   market can follow.  Mini-Genera on a PC for example. We will know it
> >   sucks - they wont. We blased a trail into the woods with a blade so
> >   sharp that we got caught up in the act of cutting down the trees: turn
> >   around - there's no one behind. It's probably too late now, sad isnt it?
> 
> Well I don't know. Even Wirth is coming with new little systems
> (Oberon). Why don't we have a lisp equivalent to Oberon (but better).

On one hand, I don't know anything about Oberon (sounds like I should).
On the other hand, I'm now learning, and rather infatuated with, ``ML'', so 
theres the burning question "Can a system as cool as Genera/LispM be built 
in that?" Isn't the concept/envrionment of the LispM what we all *really* 
love?  Could be happiness be found in an environment like that in another
language (sort of like moving to another country?)? Excuse the blasphemy, 
if any is perceived.  (Uh, oh, I'm digressing again...) 

Don't get me wrong, I really like hacking in lisp, but I'm beginning to
suspect the the Coolness of Genera has more to do with design and thought,
and that Lisp (wonderful as it is) acts more as an 'enabling technonlogy'
[i.e. it was done in lisp 'cuz lisp lets you do it].  The historians
will correct me here, I'm sure.

> A tiny OS with it's own windowing system and usable on PCs at home.

I've dreamed of something like this, and even given a little thought
to trying to do it [using, say, Mach3 and CMU Common Lisp as a starting
point... but I guess that isn't really "tiny" anymore]  Sadly, it's well 
beyond my abilities and time resources. Of course, I'm a bit of a dreamer 
anyhow...(aren't we all?) 

For the time being, I took the easy way out, and got a 3640 to play with.
[which has the nice benefit of stalling off the need to buy a PC :-)].

> 
> Well, maybe Apple is developing something, I don't know. Their Common
> Lisp is quite nice, but again not enough people know about it and
> I haven't seen any articles about it in computer magazines for a
> long time.
> 

A while back, someone [who?] mentioned that Genera may be ported to the
Alpha...  If this happens, and if DEC comes through with an affordable 
Alpha-PC, this may be the "break" we're all looking for...


Comments, criticisms, continuations welcome...

Steve