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From: papresco@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Prescod)
Subject: Re: Why lisp failed in the marketplace
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Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 16:19:28 GMT
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In article <3066588599082020@naggum.no>, Erik Naggum  <erik@naggum.no> wrote:
>I wonder if the purported failure in the marketplace is due _only_ to bad
>first introductions and resulting prejudice.  once people get over their
>first introductions (or the bad (formal) introductions aren't their first),
>they seem to stay with Lisp.

I think that programmers from the hacker culture are also more comfortable
with languages where they feel that they understand the underlying runtime
model and can predict optimizations based on their knowledge of assembly
language. Newer algol-derived languages make these forms of predictions 
harder and harder, so I am proposing this as a historical phenomenon and
not at all as a valid current argument against functional languages.

 Paul Prescod

