Re: Lot's of new (incompatible) Lisp dialects


Rainer Joswig <joswig@xxxxxxx> writes:
New Lisp dialects seem to be the new hobby. They are mostly
incompatible to existing and emerging dialects.

Proponent@xxxxxxx writes:
This makes one worry that no replacement for CL will ever become
sufficiently widespread as to be truly viable. Is it perhaps in the
nature of people who are attracted to Lisp that they tend to go off
each in his own direction?

New Lisp dialects are not a new hobby -- they are a very old
hobby. From 1960 to about 1985, new lisp dialects flourished, and with
them new ideas and new visions of what Lisp could do and what it
could become.

On a regular basis, new Lisps would appear, and with them, new
frontiers were crossed. Lexical scoping, object systems, even such
basic tools as strings as a first class type, were tried out in new
dialects, and ultimately spread and made the community stronger.

Since the development of Common Lisp and the AI winter, it has become
unfashionable to create new dialects, and a dim view has been taken of
experimentation. Some claim that new dialects divide the community,
and that there is nothing to learn from the new dialects. Orthodoxy
has set in, as well as stagnation, and the main dialect has remained
largely untouched in fifteen years, on a basis that is 25 years
old. The community has also, sadly, turned inwards and looked back to
the past instead of towards the future -- one hears constant laments
for Lisp Machines and other parts of the glorious golden age of yore,
instead of about what we can do next.

The emergence of new dialects of Lisp is not a sign of trouble. It is
a sign that the community is finally regaining its health. Springtime
has come at last after a long ice age, new flowers are growing where
the glaciers have receded. I'm glad of it.

Let a hundred flowers bloom: let a hundred schools of thought contend.


Perry
.

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