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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Why do people like C? (Was: Comparison: Beta - Lisp)
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References: <os2Psc1w165w@sytex.com> <35dcf9$jao@news.aero.org> <1994Sep19.221325.3567@cabell.vcu.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 18:13:22 GMT
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In article <1994Sep19.221325.3567@cabell.vcu.edu> csc1alf@cabell.vcu.edu (Adrian L. Flanagan) writes:
>doner@aero.org (John Doner) writes:
>
>>In article <os2Psc1w165w@sytex.com>, Scott McLoughlin <smcl@sytex.com> wrote:
>>>I'm still _VERY_ curious (concerned?)
>>>about why Lisp isn't more popular in "the trenches".
>>...
>>>        So why don't folks use Lisp to write this stuff? Blazing
>>>speed,space,etc. aint that critical. What gives?
>
>[long abstract theory deleted]
>
>>I invite criticism of this theory.
>
>>John Doner
>
>I must strenously disagree with the original poster.  "Blazing
>speed,space,etc." are that critical. 

Then why are so many things so large and slow?  Sure, there are
some cases where speed, space, etc are critical, but there must
be many others where they aren't.  I think you are right to an
extent, but it can't be the whole story.

>Particularly in the PC DOS
>world with its 640K restriction, program size and efficiency of
>compiled code made a tremendous market difference in acceptance of
>early commercial programs.  Programmers writing in C had a large
>advantage over programmers using the early Lisp systems, [...]

>The (relative) failure of Lisp has everything to do with Lisp
>vendors' failure to understand (even now) the needs of their
>marketplace.  Call it Ivory Tower Syndrome.

Did anyone really think Lisp would occupy the place C now has?
If so, they sure went about it in a bizarre way!

Most Common Lisp vendors at least did not seem to see the PC DOS world
as their market.  (Or, again, if they did, they approached it a very
strange way.)  There is a market that commercial Common Lisps served
fairly well.  It was more restricted than it could have been, even if
we look only at reasonably powerful "workstations".  Perhaps the vendors
didn't realize how much people would still want to do Unix stuff
rather than just live in the Lisp World.  I don't know.

A strange thing is that it sometimes looks like only success in the
PC market counts at all.  The PC market is a rather odd place.
The OS technology would have been laughed out of town in the 70s.
And yet people put up with 640K restrictions, no virtual memory,
no proper multi-tasking, etc, for ages.  I think it's reasonable
that someone might not have predicted that things would develop
the way they did in the PC market, much less that the PC market
would start to dominate other markets (at least so far as
perception of success is concerned).

Moreover, I think it's surprising that _any_ language has so
dominant a position.

-- jeff
