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From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker)
Subject: Re: Why lisp failed in the marketplace
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Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 20:29:06 GMT
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In article <3066588599082020@naggum.no>, Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> wrote:

> * Mike McDonald
> | Remember, this was in one of those silly "Introduction to AI" classes.
> | Running Eliza in batch mode isn't very exciting. Now that I'm more
> | knowledgable about lisp, I can see where it's useful even in batch
> | mode. But I couldn't back then as a first introduction.
> 
> 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.

There may be something to this.  In my experience of teaching Lisp (and APL)
to non-CS undergrads, they had no trouble with Lisp at all, and were able to
do very substantial projects in a 1-semester course.  The CS students -- due
to the baggage that they carried into the class from BASIC, C, PL/I, Cobol,
Pascal, etc. -- actually had a much harder time coming to grips with Lisp.
The CS people kept trying to use loops instead of recursion, and worried
very inappropriately about 'efficiency' instead of just getting on with
the job of programming something.

Then, of course, it is conceivable that the CS students may not have been as
bright -- the others were prelaw, premed, physics, math, etc.
