Mr. Dussud was favored with one of the closing plenary sessions of the conference, and used it to suggest Common Lisp cripple itself in various ways (help me, someone: static typing is all I remember) so it could have the honor of running on Microsoft's CLR. Well, OK, the motivation would be in the title of the paper "Re-inventing Lisp for Ubiquity".
Funny, I thought that word meant omnipresence, not Win32. Anyway, Mr. Dussud indicated we had to do something or die, because other languages were catching up with Lisp. When challenged on that, he indicated that different languages were copying different features, not that any one language was catching up with Lisp. That amounts to a retraction, yes?
JonL White went for the jugular and pleasantly asked how CL could (paraphrasing) trigger Microsoft's anti-competitive mean streak and get it to develop CL# the way they attacked Java with C#.
JonL is lucky looks cannot kill, as is your correspondent, who asked if, given Lisp's growing popularity, Dussud also felt it was time for mainland China to surrender to Taiwan.
This led one of the faithful to turn on me and say he was not aware of any increase in Lisp's popularity, something I heard time and again at ILC2005. I replied that he does not read comp.lang.lisp, of which I was confident because no one else who had challenged me on that turned out to be a c.l.l reader.
Afterwards I spoke to Mr Dussud and shook his hand, congratulating him on his bravery. Strong guy. I was lucky to get all my fingers back. :)
"If you plan to enter text which our system might consider to be obscene, check here to certify that you are old enough to hear the resulting output." -- Bell Labs text-to-speech interactive Web page
> Mr. Dussud was favored with one of the closing plenary sessions of the > conference, and used it to suggest Common Lisp cripple itself in various > ways (help me, someone: static typing is all I remember) so it could > have the honor of running on Microsoft's CLR. Well, OK, the motivation > would be in the title of the paper "Re-inventing Lisp for Ubiquity".
Its the inevitable refrain from people not actually trying to do something with Lisp, but flogging some abstract agenda which they think relates. There must be a corollary to Greenspun that addresses the consequences of trying to force high level languages into a C/C++ runtime. Either you shoot off your feet or you trip over your shoelaces- either way your nose ends up in the dog poop on the sidewalk in front of you.
>> Mr. Dussud was favored with one of the closing plenary sessions of the >> conference, and used it to suggest Common Lisp cripple itself in various >> ways (help me, someone: static typing is all I remember) so it could >> have the honor of running on Microsoft's CLR. Well, OK, the motivation >> would be in the title of the paper "Re-inventing Lisp for Ubiquity".
> Its the inevitable refrain from people not actually trying to do > something with Lisp, but flogging some abstract agenda which they think > relates. There must be a corollary to Greenspun that addresses the > consequences of trying to force high level languages into a C/C++ > runtime. Either you shoot off your feet or you trip over your > shoelaces- either way your nose ends up in the dog poop on the sidewalk > in front of you.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but when I looked at the list of talks on ILC2005's web site, it made me glad I wasn't there. At least half of what I saw was either crapware, or peddleware, or reware. Reware is something that's already been built a dozen times, but presented as brand new and innovative. Lisp copiled to .NET? There are a dozen of those that compile to JVM and/or .NET. Strictly typed Lisp?! - ML. Strictly typed Lisp compiled to .NET? - SML.NET (sp?) and F#.
(I'm sure I've just offended a bunch of people, but hey, there's a 50% chance they've already been offended by my earlier comments about their fathood anyway)
> Mr. Dussud was favored with one of the closing plenary sessions of the > conference, and used it to suggest Common Lisp cripple itself in > various ways (help me, someone: static typing is all I remember) so it > could have the honor of running on Microsoft's CLR. Well, OK, the > motivation would be in the title of the paper "Re-inventing Lisp for > Ubiquity".
I think you are missing the point. It is difficult to integrate Lisp into an engineering environment where programmers are writing or integrating software written in many different languages. The suggested changes would make Lisp more easily hosted on top of a contemporary runtime like the JVM or the CLR, in turn making it easier to deliver the object code of applications written in Lisp. If you do not think Lisp has a problem delivering applications, ask yourself why Lisp completely missed the boat on component software.
Alex Goldman wrote: > (I'm sure I've just offended a bunch of people, > but hey, there's a 50% chance they've already been > offended by my earlier comments about their fathood > anyway)
I'm not offended. You'll have to try harder.
My interests are fairly academic and language-oriented, and I attended less than half of the presentations, but here were some of the speakers and talks I thought were especially worthwhile:
John Allen. History, Mystery, and Ballast. Jerry Boetje. Unicode 4.0 in Common Lisp. Paul Dietz. The GNU ANSI Common Lisp Test Suite. Bert Halstead. Curl: A Content Language for the Web. James McDonald. Correctness-by-Construction is in your future. J Strother Moore. A Mechanized Program Verifier. Per Bothner. Mixing Lisps in Kawa. Patrick Dussud. Re-inventing Lisp for Ubiquity. Henry Baker. The Legacy Of Lisp.
Moore's presentation was outstanding. Baker didn't have time to present more than a fraction of the ideas on his slides, which I look forward to studying. It was nice to hear John McCarthy, but the questions and answers were the most interesting part of that session.
Carl Shapiro <cshapiro+s...@panix.com> writes: > Kenny Tilton <ktil...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> I think you are missing the point. It is difficult to integrate Lisp > into an engineering environment where programmers are writing or > integrating software written in many different languages. The > suggested changes would make Lisp more easily hosted on top of a > contemporary runtime like the JVM or the CLR, in turn making it easier > to deliver the object code of applications written in Lisp. If you do > not think Lisp has a problem delivering applications, ask yourself why > Lisp completely missed the boat on component software.
So one of the fundamentally nice things about Lisp should be eviscerated for the convienence of a mythical advantage in "integration with other languages" where the "other languages" are warmed over C++ and Visual Basic?
I've worked on projects integrating C and Ada on embedded operating systems and the language integration issue has thus far been among the least of the issues- pretty much at the same level as getting the makefiles to work right. Its footprint as an issue pretty much extends to getting the various vendors and users to share enough info to work out the kinks down at the ABI. I'd approach a composite Common Lisp/C/C++ situation with something like ECLS, or an adaptation of a commercial vendor's product where I could host & control the Lisp elements as tasks & resources in the OS. Nothing especially subtle. Remember .NET isn't here to solve a technical problem, its to solve a lack of monopoly problem for Microsoft.
The big long-term issues are interrelationships of control and data and state, which is always the case. Sharing the types & classes is a 2nd order issue at best, and is generally mitigated by being thorough with the interface definitions- which you'd better have anyhow or you're writing spagetti code.
Not that vm's are useless, but they don't solve the hard problems.
>>>Mr. Dussud was favored with one of the closing plenary sessions of the >>>conference, and used it to suggest Common Lisp cripple itself in various >>>ways (help me, someone: static typing is all I remember) so it could >>>have the honor of running on Microsoft's CLR. Well, OK, the motivation >>>would be in the title of the paper "Re-inventing Lisp for Ubiquity".
>>Its the inevitable refrain from people not actually trying to do >>something with Lisp, but flogging some abstract agenda which they think >>relates. There must be a corollary to Greenspun that addresses the >>consequences of trying to force high level languages into a C/C++ >>runtime. Either you shoot off your feet or you trip over your >>shoelaces- either way your nose ends up in the dog poop on the sidewalk >>in front of you.
> I'll probably get flamed for this, but when I looked at the list of talks on > ILC2005's web site, it made me glad I wasn't there. At least half of what I > saw was either crapware, or peddleware, or reware. Reware is something > that's already been built a dozen times, but presented as brand new and > innovative. Lisp copiled to .NET? There are a dozen of those that compile > to JVM and/or .NET. Strictly typed Lisp?! - ML. Strictly typed Lisp > compiled to .NET? - SML.NET (sp?) and F#.
> (I'm sure I've just offended a bunch of people, but hey, there's a 50% > chance they've already been offended by my earlier comments about their > fathood anyway)
ILC conferences are all about socializing and schmoozing and putting faces on names. You might not learn much form the talks, but your social skills might improve. :)
"If you plan to enter text which our system might consider to be obscene, check here to certify that you are old enough to hear the resulting output." -- Bell Labs text-to-speech interactive Web page
Cool, thx. But that mentions only strong typing. I recall quite a list of amputations he had in mind for CL.
>>Mr. Dussud was favored with one of the closing plenary sessions of the >>conference, and used it to suggest Common Lisp cripple itself in >>various ways (help me, someone: static typing is all I remember) so it >>could have the honor of running on Microsoft's CLR. Well, OK, the >>motivation would be in the title of the paper "Re-inventing Lisp for >>Ubiquity".
> I think you are missing the point. It is difficult to integrate Lisp > into an engineering environment where programmers are writing or > integrating software written in many different languages.
I think you are forgetting that I come from a planet where Common Lisp is only a few years away from pushing all other languages into the sea.
"If you plan to enter text which our system might consider to be obscene, check here to certify that you are old enough to hear the resulting output." -- Bell Labs text-to-speech interactive Web page
Kenny Tilton <ktil...@nyc.rr.com> writes: > Cool, thx. But that mentions only strong typing. I recall quite a list > of amputations he had in mind for CL.
You'll find a copy of that list in your proceedings.
> I think you are forgetting that I come from a planet where Common Lisp > is only a few years away from pushing all other languages into the sea.
"If you plan to enter text which our system might consider to be obscene, check here to certify that you are old enough to hear the resulting output." -- Bell Labs text-to-speech interactive Web page
