Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site wdl1.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!hpda!fortune!wdl1!jbn From: jbn@wdl1.UUCP Newsgroups: net.ai Subject: Re: Thus spake the DoD... Message-ID: <313@wdl1.UUCP> Date: Mon, 4-Mar-85 23:18:37 EST Article-I.D.: wdl1.313 Posted: Mon Mar 4 23:18:37 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Mar-85 07:06:27 EST Sender: notes@wdl1.UUCP Organization: Ford Aerospace, Western Development Laboratories Lines: 16 Nf-ID: #R:ssc-vax:-41700:wdl1:1100012:000:1087 Nf-From: wdl1!jbn Mar 4 19:09:00 1985 ... ``Don't forget that LISP is a programming environment, not just a programming language.'' Indeed. One problem with LISP is that it is usually hard to separate out the completed program from the development environment and run it in a production environment; there is a strong built-in assumption in most LISP systems that the user wants all the programming tools available at all times. Some years ago, when Franz Lisp, which has a separate compiler that generates somewhat nonstandard .o files was being written, I asked one of the developers if it would be possible to link the .o files with a suitable library, rather than loading them into the Lisp image containing the reader, interpreter, the entire library, etc, so that only the library routines needed by the compiled code would be present. It was a sort of culture shock to him that anyone would ask such a question; the idea that one would want to run LISP programs without everything in the standard system present was totally alien to his way of thinking. But this is exactly what you want in embedded systems.