Newsgroups: comp.lang.dylan
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From: smcl@sytex.com (Scott McLoughlin)
Subject: Re: Will Apple use Dylan for development?
Message-ID: <5c4iyc1w165w@sytex.com>
Sender: bbs@sytex.com
Organization: Sytex Access Ltd.
References: <22684.199501061449@epcot.harlequin.com>
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 22:37:27 GMT
Lines: 43

wesleyd@harlequin.com (Wesley Dunnington) writes:

> Lisp got hammered in the sense that relatively few developers use it to
> develop commercial software. The hope was that with all the dialects of
> lisp consolidated under common lisp, and the common lisp object system 
> (CLOS). Lisp would reach many new groups of developers. I doubt that lisp
> has 5% of the installed seats that C has. 
> 
> When I talked to people developing applications in lisp in the mid to late
> 80's, they were predicting that lisp would ascend the throne to the king 
> of programming languages, and the high level assembler that is C would 
> be consigned to the dustbin of obsolete programming languages.  Then 
> the people I knew ended up recoding their apps in C. C'est la vie.
> 

Howdy,
        Yes. C is a high level assembler and is - despite its
warts - a damn nifty, low impact and quite adaptible little 
language. Long live C.
        That said, I don't think Lisp will die. It's a systems
programming language, a 4GL on steroids, a rapid prototyping
system, a programming in the large language, and interpreter, 
a kick butt optimizing compiler, a programmable language, the
worlds greatest macro preprocessor -- it's just LISP. 
        It's too damn nifty to die. GNU's Scheme extension
will introduce more folks to Lisp. Franz is marketing
Allegro at Windows users and getting some space in the
popular trade press. Windows 3.1 and NT finally provides
a PC platform suitable for Lisp. We're about to release
(finally) an embedded Lisp VBX for Visual Basic (way cool).
        Lisp is a damn good programming language and the
ultimate "prototyping" language when you have to "prototype"
something more than a GUI interface. It provides a mix
of flexibility, power and safety that so far is unique
among "popular" programming languages.  With its high
level operators and macros, it is also the ultimate
"one off, throw away utility" programming language.
        Long live Lisp.

=============================================
Scott McLoughlin
Conscious Computing
=============================================
