Re: Interesting developments since "Beating the averages"?

Tin Gherdanarra wrote: 
Arguably, Paul Graham's essay has been very influential
and was the seed crystal that put Lisp into the spotlight.
I noticed that Lisp moved from belittled fringe player
to radical chic since then. However, I'm under the impression
that not much has changed in terms of technology and
community efforts. Peter Seibel's admirable book and
promising current gardeners-project is the only exception,
but I might have missed something. If so, what? Maybe
it's too early to tell, but I don't have the feeling
that Lisp's handicaps have been alleviated since April 2001
when "Beating the averages" came out. But maybe I'm
wrong because I was looking at the wrong places.

I think you need to list the handicaps you have in mind or it is a little hard to answer your question. No standard FFI? sockets? GUI? libraries in general? What? Anyway....

There has been some progress on those things, but your assessment is not far off. The main thing that has changed is what you have observed, viz. that Lisp mindshare has done a 180 degree turn and there is an exploding grassroots thing going on. And that is where libraries come from, so watch for things to change over the next couple of years.

btw, 4/2001 may be when BtA was published (taking your word for it) but the grassroots boom did not get interesting until late 2005.

kenny
.

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