Do academics really love Lisp? I doubt!

From: Emre Sevinc (emres_at_bilgi.edu.tr)
Date: 10/28/04 

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 07:06:31 +0300

Statements:

1- "The history of genetic programming started with
Lisp s-expressions but as you all know Lisp has its problems,
it is slow so programs were converted to C, C++, Java, etc."

2- "Lisp has a nasty feature called garbage collection
and it can stop all its operations while trying to do
something..."

Context of statements:

1- During an AI class, talking about evolutionary algorithms,
genetic programming, etc.

2- During another AI class, talking about the real-time
performance of expert systems, knowledge-based systems, etc.

Who said?

- A respected AI proffessor.

Who were the audience?

- Approximately 30 graduate students attending to the AI course
which is a part of Computer Engineering Master's Degree programme
at one of the top 3 universities in Turkey.

Now I've heard that people used to say "Lisp is loved by
professors at the universities..." I guess this is a counter
example.

The thing is that all those intelligent boys and girls who
had computer engineering education for at least 4 years
and will be working in important organizations in the
future, they all listened to the professor and nodded
their heads as a sign of approval, after all the man was
their professor, he programmed lots of applications in AI
and he was supposed to know what he was talking about, wasn't
he?

I record these kinds of events as perfect examples of
creating the roots of prejudice. Now can you imagine me
giving one of those guys a copy of "Practical Lisp" or "On Lisp"
or some other important book related to the subject?

Another example from another university:

- A couple of CS students were protesting the course program
claiming that the courses which use Lisp and Scheme as implementation
languages for theoretical subjects discussed must abandon
those languages and start giving examples in C language
(because DOOM3, the linux kernel, etc. was all written in C
and this made the language THE choice of the best programmers).

These three events made me think over and over again. Looks
like things aren't very bright on this part of the world. I'm
just a beginner and I don't have much to say, all I can say
is that once you learn something it is very very difficult to
forget it and once a well respected man makes some negative
claims on some aspects of something this will be carried by
his listeners to others in the community so its effect will
span a wider audience than intended leading to some echo effect 

-- 
Emre Sevinc
eMBA Software Developer
Istanbul Bilgi University
http://www.bilgi.edu.tr
http://www.bilgiemba.net
Cognitive Science Student
http://www.cogsci.boun.edu.tr
Actively engaged in:
http://ileriseviye.org -- Advanced level technical articles
http://fazlamesai.net  -- /. style geek site in Turkish (better than /.)
http://cazci.com       -- All about jazz

Relevant Pages

  • Re: LISPPA
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  • Re: LISPPA
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    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: How Common Lisp sucks
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  • Re: LISPPA
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    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • [ANN] 2nd European Lisp & Scheme Workshop
    ... Pascal Costanza, Programming Technology Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel ... Lisp has a tradition of providing a fruitful basis for language design ... and suggestions for breakout groups that discuss the opportunities Lisp ...
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