Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
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From: vrotney@netcom.com (William Paul Vrotney)
Subject: Re: Common Lisp is dead (was: Re: Why garbage collection?)
In-Reply-To: pjackson@falcon.ic.net's message of 12 Feb 1996 05:01:02 GMT
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Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 08:23:20 GMT
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In article <4fmhie$t43@condor.ic.net> pjackson@falcon.ic.net (Philip
Jackson) writes:

   William Paul Vrotney (vrotney@netcom.com) wrote:

   : I look at it this way.  Lisp is the ONLY language that is STILL ALIVE (after
   : all these years)!  

   Isn't Fortran still alive, and in widespread use for "scientific 
   programs"?  If so, it's my understanding it originated about the same time
   as Lisp.

Are Roman numerals still alive?  They are still in widespread use.

Yes, FORTRAN and Lisp originated around the same time but there was no Ada,
C, C++, Mathematica, Smalltalk ... etc back then to compete with.  My
understanding is that most of the FORTRAN used these days is old existing
libraries or engineering applications.  Probably few programmers today would
start a new non-engineering project in FORTRAN.  However this is not true of
Lisp.  Engineers would be more apt to choose one of the Math/Engineering
interpreters/Lab instead of FORTRAN for numerical computation.  Whether, if
this is true, qualifies as being either dead or alive is a matter of
semantics.  I know of no one starting a brand new non-engineering project in
FORTRAN today, if someone does, let us know, and I will either revise my
statement, or advise the person doing such of other alternatives.  However
even if we put FORTRAN and Lisp in the same category, if Lisp is ONLY ONE OF
TWO oldest programming languages STILL ALIVE today, that is still pretty
remarkable.

-- 

William P. Vrotney - vrotney@netcom.com
