Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!hplabs!well!jjacobs
From: jjacobs@well.UUCP (Jeffrey Jacobs)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Commercial Viability
Message-ID: <4792@well.UUCP>
Date: 21 Dec 87 00:20:27 GMT
Reply-To: jjacobs@well.UUCP (Jeffrey Jacobs)
Distribution: comp.lang.lisp,comp.ai
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 51


As long as we are on the subjects of "being informed", "commercial viability"
and Dick Gabriel, let me strongly recommend the August 1987 issue of
UNIX Review, particularly the (mutual) interview between Earl Sacerdoti
(VP at Teknowledge) and Dick (President & Chief Technical Officer of Lucid).
(The issue is also noteworthy for two titles mentioned on the cover that 
*don't* appear in the magazine, "Products that Work" and "Preparations
for an AI Winter").

Some quotes:

D.G.:  "Common LISP just was never designed to be a commercially viable
LISP.  It was intended to serve as a compromise between the manufacturers
of LISP machines and other vendors of LISP products.  Never did we think
of it as an industrial strength system...  So, to the extent that ANSI's ongoing
efforts to standardize on Common LISP exercise some influence over how
LISP is accepted in the world at large, I anticipate a disaster".

E.S.: "Unless we distinguish between the versions of LISP that we intend
to use for exploratory research and those that have been designed for
commercial use, ANSI's standard is going to end up being a research's
standard.  Then, if everybody jumps on the bandwagon ot support that as
a *commercial* standard, I'd have to say we're setting ourselves up for some
serious disappointments.:

D.G.: "I think you're absolutely right.  But it may already be too late to do
anything about it".

It is too late.  Dick (and others) seemed to think that they could break CL off
as a dialect, preserving, as he put it, the name "LISP" for a future language.
I also told him that I didn't think it was possible.  There are too many people
with vested interests, emotional and financial, pushing to have CL as a 
widely accepted standard (and the emotional interest is stronger than the
financial).

LISP in America will become Common LISP.  
Personally, I don't really care whether some (large) portion of the LISP community
wants to saddle themselve with CL, but the drive to make it a standard ensures that
it will remain a researcher's language.  LISP will not go into space; it will not be 
used to develop commercial software, it will probably not be used to develop
much of anything other than editors and extensions to itself.  (And it will
never achieve the acceptance or widespread use that FORTRAN enjoys).

 Jeffrey M. Jacobs
 CONSART Systems Inc.
 Technical and Managerial Consultants
 P.O. Box 3016, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
 (213)376-3802
 CIS:75076,2603
 BIX:jeffjacobs
 USENET: jjacobs@well.UUCP