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From: bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: net.lang.lisp
Subject: Against the Tide of Common LISP
Message-ID: <830@bu-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Jun-86 20:45:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.830
Posted: Sun Jun 22 20:45:20 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Jun-86 04:37:42 EDT
Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci.
Lines: 37


>From: jjacobs@well.UUCP (Jeffrey Jacobs)
>I think CL is the WORST thing that could possibly happen to LISP.  In fact, I
>consider it a language different from "true" LISP.  CL has everything in the
>world in it, usually in 3 different forms and 4 different flavors, with 6
>different options.  I think the only thing they left out was FEXPRs...

Hear hear...I agree completely, especially the first sentance.

It's clear that CL was designed almost entirely with the compiler
in mind and in doing so has really interfered with the user's
environment.

Try writing a (savework) function in CL which saves off everything
you typed in (functions, variables etc) in a re-readable form, it
can be done I suppose, but just try a general attack (don't forget
packages...)

Where is the user environment anyhow? It's not there, every vendor
gets to make it up and in so doing will add a zillion (+-3) functions.
Will *this* be part of CL? No. Will programs 'accidently' use these
vendor supplied functions to make things useable? Yes. Will your
code run on other CLs? No.

Other than lexical scoping and macros (which I hate except in very
few situations) hopefully this can all be fixed by a CL/2 which
actually addresses the issues of -using- the language. Right now
it's obviously a set of lowest-common-denominators among a few vendors,
designed by a committee obviously and skirting almost all the interesting
issues.

This could be the beginning of a long dark ages for LISP. Franz and
Interlisp were/are far superior even if the compiler has to figure a
few things out (what a waste of a human I suppose.) Others probably
were/are also.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University