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From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker)
Subject: Re: Java vs lisp (was: Re: Prolog vs. Lisp)
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In article <5ijq47$sao$1@darla.visi.com>, thornley@visi.com (David
Thornley) wrote:

> I'm going by the historical record here.  The languages that have
> lasted, the ones with histories, are the ones that have evolved.
> COBOL, Fortran, Lisp, C, Basic.  The languages that have been
> standardized from the start, such as PL/1 and Pascal, have generally
> not been nearly as successful.  Java and Ada are the two current
> success stories of the design process, with Pascal some distance
> behind.

(One little nit: PL/I _wasn't_ standardized until very late in the day,
and by total usage, it can be considered to be a successful language, at
least relative to, e.g., Pascal and Ada.)

I agree with you wholeheartedly about languages that have evolved.  In fact,
_standardization kills languages_.  Although ANSI standardization improved C for
a few milliseconds, all of the people making improvements then began working
on C++.  When C++ became fixed, the people making improvements went on to
Java.  And so on.

Lisp survived so long precisely because it continued evolving to meet the
needs of its users.  DARPA killed Common Lisp by standardizing it.  The
final meetings of the Lisp standards committee were like the Auld Lang Syne
(sp??) scene in the old black-and-white version of the 'Sinking of the Titanic'.

The only standardized human language today is Latin.  Need I say more?
