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 13 Feb 1996 01:11:25 GMT
Message-ID: <vrotneyDMp2wt.BH7@netcom.com>
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References: <vrotneyDMnLyw.FoL@netcom.com> <4fnmcd$pjm@ra.nrl.navy.mil> <4fooft$8ac@condor.ic.net>
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 03:26:53 GMT
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In article <4fooft$8ac@condor.ic.net> pjackson@falcon.ic.net (Philip
Jackson) writes:
> Richard Pitre (pitre@n5160d.nrl.navy.mil) wrote:
> : In article <vrotneyDMnLyw.FoL@netcom.com> vrotney@netcom.com (William Paul  
> : Vrotney) writes:
> : > In article <4fmhie$t43@condor.ic.net> pjackson@falcon.ic.net (Philip
> : > Jackson) writes:
> : > 
> : >    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.
> 
> Are Roman numerals a programming language? Answer = No, of course.
> 

The point that I was trying to make here is to raise the question

        "What do we mean when we say non-bio something is alive?"

And in particular what do we mean when we say that a programming language is
alive.  In my last post I suggested that it might mean that programmers
would use it to write NEW programs in a NEW project.  I didn't think that
this was widely true of FORTRAN anymore, much as I don't think that it is
widely true that people would use Roman numerals to compute anymore.

I didn't intend to get off on this FORTRAN tangent, sorry.  If people are in
fact using FORTRAN to start new projects then I stand corrected and change
my statement to "Lisp is ONE of the oldest programming languages STILL
ALIVE", although that doesn't have quite the impact.  The idea here was to
compare Lisp with all other programming languages and not just the oldest
like FORTRAN.  The intent of this idea was to point out that Lisp is still
being used to start NEW projects combined with the fact that it has been
around for a long time.  People who say "Lisp is dead" need to answer to
this.  I didn't mean to put down FORTRAN, I meant to uplift Lisp.


-- 

William P. Vrotney - vrotney@netcom.com
