Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
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From: mad@math.keio.ac.jp (MAEDA Atusi)
Subject: Re: ISO/IEC CD 13816 -- ISLisp
In-Reply-To: mad@math.keio.ac.jp's message of Thu, 14 Dec 1995 05:35:51 GMT
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Organization: Faculty of Sci. and Tech., Keio Univ., Yokohama, Japan.
References: <49u965$948@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU>
	<MAD.95Dec14143551@tanzanite.math.keio.ac.jp>
	<19951215T014159Z@arcana.naggum.no>
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Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1995 08:21:05 GMT
Lines: 43

>>>>> "ok" == Richard A O'Keefe <ok@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU> writes:

    ok> I do appreciate the line of argument here, but it is precisely the
    ok> same kind of "nyaa nyaa ni nyaa nyaa i'm not gunna play with YOUR
    ok> language I'm gunna play with MY language" approach that nearly wrecked
    ok> the Prolog standard and quite certainly delayed it for more years than
    ok> is creditable.  We're talking about a situation where there was
    ok>  - one "Lisp" standard already official (Scheme)
    ok>    (and lots of free implementations including some great ones)
    ok>  - one "Lisp" standard in use by a large fraction of the community
    ok>    undergoing revision with the ANSI standard very close (CL)
    ok>    (and a KCL to name but one)
    ok>  - a rival "Lisp" standard under development with a freely evailable
    ok>    implementation and a lot of really neat ideas (EULisp)
    ok> and ISlisp is compatible with *none* of them, in broad or in detail.

...`MY language'?  I've never said I particulary prefer ISLisp over
Common Lisp or Scheme.  I think much (but not all) of the criticism
made against ISLisp in this group is just right.

>>>>> "erik" == Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> writes:

    erik> I find ISLisp a depressing development.  it appears unnecessary, and it is
    erik> gratuitously different from Common Lisp.  have you failed to realize that
    erik> Lispers are facing people who want nothing stronger than to ridicule Lisp
    erik> because they don't understand it and so don't want to use it?  what better
    erik> weapon to give them than to point out that even Lispers don't want to talk
    erik> each others' languages?

Do you mean you want single standard, instead of several parallel
standards (as we have now)?  Then that's what ISLisp is intended to be.

Or are you asking for accepting Common Lisp (or one of other existing
standards) as international standard?  If the standard, as a result of
deep arguments on individual features, eventually becomes exactly the
same as Common Lisp, then that's fine.  I'm willing to accept it.  But
I don't think modification is automatically a bad thing.

;;;  Keio University
;;;    Faculty of Science and Technology
;;;      Department of Math
;;;		MAEDA Atusi (MAEDA is my family name)
;;;		mad@math.keio.ac.jp
