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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Why do people like C? (Was: Comparison: Beta -
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References: <37p0uq$2gn@omnifest.uwm.edu> <19941016T124439Z.enag@naggum.no> <TFB.94Oct19090509@burns.cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 19:23:39 GMT
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In article <TFB.94Oct19090509@burns.cogsci.ed.ac.uk> tfb@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Tim Bradshaw) writes:
>* Erik Naggum wrote:
>> |   LISP, itself, was never meant to be a purely bracketed language.  That
>> |   syntax was designed as a holdover until the language could be complete
>> |   -- a first generation in a bootstrapping process.  It's just that the
>> |   McCarthy never got around to finishing his project.  Undoubtedly, part
>> |   of the reason was that Context Free Grammars were hardly even known
>> |   back then.
>
>> could you provide some references for this history lesson?  I'd like to
>> update my insufficient view on this one.
>
>It is I think basically true. 

Well, let's see.

The list syntax was not designed as a holdover.

Lisp doesn't lack an M-expr parser because "McCarthy never got around
to finishing his project".

There's substantial reason to doubt that the status of CFGs was
a factor.  (See e.g. my earlier message.)

But, ok, there's a little left that is basically true.

-- jd
