Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!fernwood!franz!carlson From: carlson@Franz.COM (Bill Carlson) Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: why lisp is dead Message-ID: Date: 12 Apr 90 00:13:14 GMT References: <485@paradigm.com> Sender: usenet@Franz.COM Organization: Franz Inc., Berkeley, CA Lines: 56 Hello George, Lisp is not dead or dying. On Unix machines, Lisp is doing extremely well, not just as a development tool, but for delivery as well. Franz as a company is healthy and growing rapidly which makes us believe that the Unix Lisp market is also healthy and growing. Companies like NeXT, Cray, Sun, Apollo, DEC, Sequent and IBM all openly endorse Lisp on their Unix machines. So if Lisp is dying, it must be in other circles (LMs, DOS?). Your points about delivery are well taken. I would argue that the main problem with runtime is with the size of the Lisp and the expense of the delivery platform rather than the cost of runtime licenses and the administrative costs. All of these, fortunately, are being dealt with now by various Lisp vendors. It helps too, that hardware is still getting less expensive and more powerful. In Allegro CL 4.0 and in Lucid/Sun CL 4.0 you will have affordable runtime systems, affordable in both machine resources and in price. Both are due out this year. Lucid/Sun CL will use tree-shaking algorithm while Franz will take a very different approach. In either case, the point is the same; Lisp vendors are dealing with the issue of delivery in a big way and working to reduce the size of the deliverable. Lisp runtime licenses (from Franz, I can't quote others) today cost from $100 to $600 on typical Unix machines. This is more than C and Fortran, but it isn't that much considering what is provided to you with Lisp. With Lisp you get lots more functionality, with lots of features and customizable options not found in C. Lisp is also getting more and more portable and is much faster now than ever before. Lisp is still best suited for maintaining and writing large complex applications. For some smaller, simpler projects, C is admittedly more appropriate at the current time. But this will change and you will see more and more Lisp-based deliverables. If the cost of Lisp runtimes are too much for you, you can opt for some free or very inexpensive alternatives (KCL, Ibuki, PD-Franz..). We don't expect all C-based companies to switch to Lisp or vice versa. Lisp has its niche, and as software gets more powerful and complicated, that niche will grow. Lisp is not dead. It is alive and kicking, even in the commercial world. Regards, Bill Carlson Franz Inc. carlson@franz.com -- ========================================================================= Bill Carlson Franz Inc. 1995 University Avenue, Suite 275 INTERNET: carlson@franz.com Berkeley, CA 94704 UUCP: uunet!franz!carlson 415-548-3600, FAX:415-548-8253