Re: the jargon lisp1 vs lisp2 [was: function aliasing]

[ comp.lang.lisp only; http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PFAQ/cross-posting.html ]

"xahlee@xxxxxxxxx" <xahlee@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

Please try to avoid the jargons lisp1 and lisp2.

This suggestion is not a constructive one because it offers no useful
substitution. Indeed, these terms were never suggested as general
purpose, but have taken on a life of their own primarily because there
is no better term that is easily pronounceable. "having a single
namespace" or "having a particular finite number of namespaces" is
just not pithy.

* The jargon is opaque. The words do not convey its meaning.

I somewhat agree, but human language tends to be a living thing,
adapting as needed. No word starts out transparent. I think there
are valid criticisms of this term, but I think you weaken yourself
here. I think you want to say it's not general-purpose, in that it
doesn't offer itself as an adjective to be applied to other languages.
In its original context, that wasn't necessary, but if a small and
easily pronounceable adjective were devised, I think it would catch
on. However, I suspect such a word would be necessarily opaque at the
outset, which is why I don't think this is a good criticism. Opacity
is often a necessary first step in the adoption of a new word.

* Being a opaque jargon, it is often used subconsciously by people in
a group, to communicate that they are in-group.

Actually, while I agree with you that this sometimes happens, the
function is to avoid that, and I actually think it does this
successfully. In particular, there's nothing wrong with being in-group
if the group is descriptive. For example, "red" describes something
that is in-group, as I understand you to mean, and "blue" describes
another group. And "purple" yet another group, without creating a
problem for things that want to come and go as long as they do so by
stopping being red or blue or purple, or by starting being such.

The bad words are words that connote groups of features. Words like
Mac-like or PC-like are bad because people can disagree about what
Mac-like or PC-like is, and consequently it's hard to know if Unix-like
(or Linux-like, if you prefer) is Mac-like or PC-like, just as it's hard
to know if Windows Vista is even PC-like if you're used to Windows 95.
Those are group adjectives and create a problem.

But the only criterion for being in the Lisp1 group is having a single
namespace. There is a slight historical ambiguity about Lisp2 because CL
actually has some additional namespaces beyond 2, so whether 2 or 2+ is
the right designation is a wart on the usage.

But all in all, what is powerful about the Lisp1 and Lisp2
terminology, even given its flaws, is that a new language can come
along, as happened with Dylan, and one can discuss which language
family it belongs to--Lisp1 or Lisp2--pretty much independent of the
other features of the language, like whether it has a small or large
library, whether it has an object definition substrate, whether it's
mixed case, etc. In that sense, it's like having terms like
red/green/blue vary independently of tall/short or light/heavy when
describing objects.

There's a curious question. Why is the "lisp1 vs lisp2" happens only
in lisp, and we don't have "perl1 vs perl2", "java1 vs java2", "ML1
vs ML2", or any language with a variation on this?

It could theoretically happen in some of these languages, it's just
that their proponents had a particular bias. Having the terminology
to be able to ask the question is a good feature of the term.
Language exists not just to describe what is but what isn't, so your
very query here is a strength of the term.

The original meaning of the term was to allow the discussion of two
non-existent dialects: CL with one namespace and Scheme with two
namespaces, so again was a discussion of could-be languages that
didn't exist. Much of science is about creating descriptions of what
has not yet been seen so that it can be discussed and measured and
predicted and so on.

But having to understand the terms not as "lisp1" and "lisp2" but as
merely a suffix -1 or -2 weakens the terminology because it's hard to
look up such a term in something like google. That's the one thing
that really bothers me personally about the terms.

In my personal opinion, your inquiries on the nature of languages
would make a much more interesting set of topics than your tirades on
what words people should be using to make those inquiries, in my
opinion. People will use whatever words they can get away with, as
long as others understand them. Indeed, your posts sometimes contain
creative use of English itself, and I see no problem with that. I saw
a post complaining about it, but all in all, we understand you. I'm
always grateful that the worldwide debate on these matters, and on a
great many other topics, occurs in English at all, even when carried
out by people whose native languages are other than English. If that
means there is some sloppy use of English, so what? It's easier for me
than if the language were another that I happened not to know.

And I feel somewhat the same about the Lisp1 and Lisp2 terms. They
were made for a specific purpose. It was fun to see them take on a
life of their own. It gives me the sense that the writing had an
impact, and that's kind of fun. But at the same time, I cringe a
little at the sloppy nature of them, just as you seem to. If there
were better terms, I might advocate them myself. You didn't suggest
any or, if I liked them, I might be endorsing them. I'm really trying
hard to be friendly and supportive of your remarks here, but you're
not giving me a lot to work with. So, for now, I'm forced to conclude
that these terms suffice.
.

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