Re: Decreasing the "standard deviation" of lisp



Ben Prew wrote:
Ken Tilton wrote:


Ben Prew wrote:

Are you saying that the entire concept of language "standard deviation"
is flawed, ...

I will (say the entire concept is flawed). With a qualification. I agree
that Python and Java benefitted from being similar to C. The flaw I see
is... so what happened to Dylan?

....

Having spent a little time looking at the syntax and style of Dylan, I
would agree that it lowers the "standard deviation" relative to lisp,
and you're right, I don't know what happened to Dylan.

Perhaps having similar syntax isn't enough.
.....

The Lisp family of languages has certainly been around for a long time,
so there's definitely a point to be made about not chasing every
current popular trend,...

....nor chasing syntax as Dylan did and as you are suggesting.

What matters more, and what has kept Lisp alive and now has brought it back to the mainstream is the core correctness of the ideas of Lisp. Paul Graham did not hurt, either.

In fact, if you like Deep Historical Perspective, meditate on this: the scripting languages merely eliminated an obstacle to adoption when they aped C syntax. That is not what made them catch fire. What made them catch fire was adding to C: interactive development (which is often misunderstood to mean "interpreted"), no static typing of variables, garbage collection... see where I am going? Those languages do not know it, but they are chasing Lisp.

And if you read enough "the making of XXX" stories, you find their inventors at least /do/ know. Lisp informed much of their thinking.

I think something like that would be very useful, as since CL has been
around for such a long time, and from what I'm hearing, there are
mountains of code out there that one just has to find.

Nah, it's all bit-rotted crap. Probably good solid core ideas deep in there somewhere, but requiring serious effort to distill out and repackage. In the end, rewriting from scratch is much faster and has many advantages.

ken

--
Cells: http://common-lisp.net/project/cells/

"Have you ever been in a relationship?"
Attorney for Mary Winkler, confessed killer of her
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.

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