Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!bbn.com!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!milton!ogicse!pdxgate!parsely!percy!data!kend
From: kend@data.UUCP (Ken Dickey)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
Subject: Re: To Lisp, or not to Lisp; that is the question.
Message-ID: <455@data.UUCP>
Date: 9 Mar 91 17:29:36 GMT
References: <9103080432.AA06368@kolyma>
Organization: Microcosm, Beaverton, OR
Lines: 25

jonl@lucid.COM (Jon L White) writes:

JUNX>    Well, what makes a Lisp?  Let me suggest a few requirements.

	<deleted>

>but I too would have added:

>    0. incremental "on-the-fly" definition and re-definition capabilities


A small, but important clarification: let's seperate "language" and
"programming environment" issues.  Compilation, loading, debugging,
system build, etc. are very important for usability but are not part
of a programming language.  Very rarely are standard interfaces to
programming environment services even defined 8^(.

Don't get me wrong, I think that Jon's points are well taken ("Lisp"
is not just a family of languages but a way of `doing business').  I
am just a nit-picker who would prefer to see the discussions on this
thread about EVAL, LOAD, INCLUDE, etc. to be posted under the heading
of "standard interfaces to programming environment services", rather
than "language features".

-Ken Dickey					kend@data.uucp