Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!xylogics!world!paradigm!gjc
From: gjc@paradigm.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: why lisp is dead
Message-ID: <485@paradigm.com>
Date: 9 Apr 90 11:39:44 GMT
Organization: Paradigm Associates Inc, Cambridge MA
Lines: 30

Here I am, a lisp hacker, who learned what a macro was from JONL,
and what lisp microcode was from RG, and what lexical scoping was
from GLS.

So when I go to write an expert system at a startup-company
do I decide to use LISP?

NO!

Why? Mainly the unreasonable cost of the RUNTIME portion of a lisp.

three costs:
(1) technical cost of the overly-complex and large runtime portions.
(2) financial cost-of-sales for runtime licenses.
(3) administrative costs of runtime licensing procedures.

Do language vendors for C,FORTRAN,PASCAL generally charge a runtime
license fee? No, they do not. (Not even 3rd-party vendors).

But lisp vendors generally have various "technical" rationalizations for
per-instance runtime licensing costs and complexities. No need to go
into these here. The result is a classic downward spiral:

Fewer Commercial/Developers Users of Lisp 
 => Justification for obtaining revenue from runtime licenses
   => Fewer Commercial/Developers who will want to use Lisp
    => need for higher runtime license costs for more revenue
     => Fewer users of lisp ...

-gjc