Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!princeton!siemens!steve
From: steve@siemens.UUCP (Steve Clark)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Fortran
Message-ID: <332@siemens.UUCP>
Date: 9 Dec 87 15:24:36 GMT
Reply-To: steve@siemens.UUCP (Steve Clark)
Organization: Siemens RTL, Princeton, NJ
Lines: 35

This article should stir up a little controversy, I hope.

Unix is the Fortran of operating systems.
----------------------------------------

Somebody once gave a talk with this title, about 7 years ago, at Carnegie-
Mellon U.  It turns out he is fairly correct, but not as correct as he thought.
By being such a pervasive standard, Fortran held back the practice of Computer
Science for many years after the state of the art had advanced beyond it.
Unix is doing the same thing in the realm of operating systems, although
to a lesser degree.  Somehow Unix is more flexible and adaptable than Fortran,
even though it is just about as widespread and just about as standardized.

I have two new points to make today:

1)  Why isn't Lisp a Fortran?  Will Common Lisp be the Fortran of Lisp?

(Answer left as an exercise to reader.  Scheme fans will no doubt have
different answers than most of the rest of us.)

2) I assert that Emacs is the Fortran of editors.

Once you learn Emacs well (I mean really well, like just about everyone
reading this list), it is hard to find an editor worth the trouble of learning,
isn't it?  Even if the editor has theoretically superior features, you'd
rather stick with trusty old Emacs.  Besides, the new editor doesn't even
have EQUIVALENCE - oops, I mean paren-balancing.  Its proponents say you
don't need paren-balancing, it has a different way of achieving the same effect.
Well, if it's doing the same thing, then what's so great about it?
Besides, I would have to throw away my personal bag of tricks I've developed
to get around all the deficiencies of Emacs.

In conclusion, I assert (admittedly without much argument) that Emacs and
CL are, at least with respect to files and editing, Fortrans.  The "new"
ways (which aren't that new) are database-type files and structure editing.