Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!mtunx!rutgers!njin!princeton!udel!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!seismo!esosun!jackson
From: jackson@esosun.UUCP (Jerry Jackson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: What's the value of lexical scoping?
Message-ID: <199@esosun.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jun 88 19:35:50 GMT
References: <24508@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <515@dcl-csvax.comp.lancs.ac.uk>
Organization: SAIC, San Diego
Lines: 58
In-reply-to: simon@comp.lancs.ac.uk's message of 7 Jun 88 15:57:12 GMT





>>Obviously, I have my ideas about what a good LISP looks like (all right,
>>as a minimum it has dynamic binding, both LAMBDA and NLAMBDA forms, at
>>least the option of non-intrusive garbage collection; although it allows
>>macros, there is nothing you can't do with a function; and it does not
>>have packages, PROG, GO, stupid tokens in parameter lists, SETF....) -
>>everybody else out there has their own list. If you *care* about your
>>working language, the best way to make sure that this committee does not
>>produce another ugly camel is to identify your nearest working group
>>member and lobby as hard as you can. *DO IT NOW*.


FLAME ON

This is really incredible.... I've heard people flame about CommonLisp
many times.. (I have even done it myself on a few occasions..), but
I've never heard anyone attack some of these features -- 

*ahem* -- First of all, CL supports dynamic binding for those cases where
it is useful (I admit they definitely exist), although dynamic binding
is quite clearly a *BUG* (the names you give to local variables should not
matter...)

NLAMBDA -- cannot be made efficient (unless you consider a run-time call
to EVAL efficient)

packages -- Ok, I agree with this one, however a case may be made for 
an environment oriented package system (requiring lexical scoping)

PROG,GO -- For people who never have to write powerful tools I would
agree that these are not necessary, but if you had ever tried to compile
a special purpose language to lisp and make it reasonably efficient, you
would appreciate the value of having things like PROG and GO as 
compilation targets

tokens in parameter lists -- Isn't it really obvious that something
like member with a few options is better than the excessive proliferation
of look-alike functions (ala memq memql memqual ...)

SETF -- I can't believe my eyes... This is one of the BEST things about
CL... I don't know what to say.  Anyone who has actually USED CL with setf
for a while knows what I'm talking about.

HAVE YOU EVER USED LISP????? (I'm quite sure you have never used CL --
no one who had could have said the things you said.)

FLAME OFF

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|   Jerry Jackson                       UUCP:  seismo!esosun!jackson          |
|   Geophysics Division, MS/22          ARPA:  esosun!jackson@seismo.css.gov  |
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