Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!rutgers!dptg!att!cbnewsc!lgm From: lgm@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (lawrence.g.mayka) Newsgroups: comp.sw.components Subject: Re: Lisps Keywords: Common Lisp, standardization Message-ID: <3568@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> Date: 29 Sep 89 22:55:34 GMT References:Reply-To: lgm@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (lawrence.g.mayka,ihp,) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 49 In article fischer@iesd.auc.dk (Lars P. Fischer) writes: >The Lisp family boast a vast range of languages, some very much alike, >some not. Like the Algol family, the Lisp-family has had it's share of >standardization efforts (e.g. Common Lisp), attempts at OOPL (CLOS, >Loops, ...), etc. Though correct from a researcher's point of view, this strikes me as somewhat misleading to an industrial user, particularly in the United States. The future - and for the most part, even the present - of US industrial Lisp *is* for all practical purposes Common Lisp, the language undergoing ANSI standardization. Major vendors are not building new industrial-strength systems on any other dialect, nor are major industrial users planning new purchases of any other. Extensions are welcomed (though they are not to be used in portable code); subsets and variants are rejected. First-generation object-oriented programming systems have been useful both for proving concepts and for building systems, but again, the future is in the second generation: the Common Lisp Object System, subject of ANSI standardization. If this is not a generally fair summary of US industrial Lisp usage, please let me know. I grant that the situation in research and teaching is significantly different: Theoretical and pedagogical considerations are given great weight, as one would expect. Scheme, in particular, is quite popular on college campuses. >The Lisp family is constantly evolving, producing new variants all the >time, some with fancy features, some different because of different >points of view, etc. (Can you say "Modula3", "Oberon", "YouNameIt"). This is a description of research, but not of industrial practice. It is true, however, that even Common Lisp will evolve at a faster rate than languages such as C and Ada, simply because Lisp's syntax and semantics are specifically *designed* for extension. Luckily, those same facilities of Lisp make back-compatibility easier as well. >If they are both, say, Common Lisp systems, thing will be OK (provided >you didn't use X11 or something nasty like that...). Yes, a graphics standard for Common Lisp is still "emerging." Lawrence G. Mayka AT&T Bell Laboratories lgm@ihlpf.att.com Standard disclaimer.