[apologies if this has materialised in similar form or does so soon unbeknownst to me, but from where I sit it appears Google ate a similar report posted yesterday via google groups.]
Dr. McCarthy joined with Henry Baker, his predecessor at the microphone, in bemoaning the standardization of Common Lisp as stultifying if not mortifying, in that it ended innovation.
When rahul defended standardization as allowing his code to run ten years from now, McCarthy indicated that (paraphrasing) by the looks of Rahul it was unlikely he would produce code that anyone would want to run ten years from now.*
XML had the honor of having McCarthy stop in the middle of a meandering bit of reflection to mention how much he disliked XML.
And when your correspondent asked why he had chosen such a crappy name for such a great language and whether he regretted, in what is becoming an annual rite of humiliation, he pretty much ignored my question, but did mention that his preference had been FLPL, for Fortran List Processing Language, because he liked Fortran.
Intriguingly, there is a Fortran package with that exact name and acronym and function, created in 1960 as far as I can make out from some light googling.
* McCarthy actually meant that very little code lasts ten years.
"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 wrote: > [apologies if this has materialised in similar form or does so soon > unbeknownst to me, but from where I sit it appears Google ate a similar > report posted yesterday via google groups.]
> Dr. McCarthy joined with Henry Baker, his predecessor at the microphone, > in bemoaning the standardization of Common Lisp as stultifying if not > mortifying, in that it ended innovation.
As much as I like Common Lisp, I think he has a point here.
> When rahul defended standardization as allowing his code to run ten > years from now, McCarthy indicated that (paraphrasing) by the looks of > Rahul it was unlikely he would produce code that anyone would want to > run ten years from now.*
This was one of the most bizarre moments I have experienced ever, that people tried to convince John McCarthy that standardization is actually a good thing. As if he would ever care.
It was clear from his talk that he cares about a long-term vision (namely how to achieve human-level artificial intelligence). Language standardization is worth zilch in that regard.
Pascal
-- 2nd European Lisp and Scheme Workshop July 26 - Glasgow, Scotland - co-located with ECOOP 2005 http://lisp-ecoop05.bknr.net/
Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> writes: > Kenny Tilton wrote: >> [apologies if this has materialised in similar form or does so soon >> unbeknownst to me, but from where I sit it appears Google ate a >> similar report posted yesterday via google groups.] >> Dr. McCarthy joined with Henry Baker, his predecessor at the >> microphone, in bemoaning the standardization of Common Lisp as >> stultifying if not mortifying, in that it ended innovation.
> As much as I like Common Lisp, I think he has a point here.
As did Baker, or rather a dozen or so good points--can't wait until his full slidedeck is available.
>> When rahul defended standardization as allowing his code to run ten >> years from now, McCarthy indicated that (paraphrasing) by the looks >> of Rahul it was unlikely he would produce code that anyone would >> want to run ten years from now.*
> This was one of the most bizarre moments I have experienced ever, > that people tried to convince John McCarthy that standardization is > actually a good thing. As if he would ever care.
While concuring with Pascal that that was a weird moment (and it wasn't just Rahul who tried to convince McCarthy that the standard was a good thing), I'd like to point out that I don't think McCarthy was insulting Rahul--merely misunderstanding him. From where I was sitting it sounded like Rahul started his comment by saying something along the lines of, "I don't care about standardization because it's going to ensure that code that was written 20 years ago still runs today ...". In that he was riffing off a previously comment from someone else in the audience. He went on to say that the reason he was glad there was a standard was because it meant there were multiple implementations *today* that could all run his code, each with different strengths and weaknesses. However McCarthy appeared to have heard him to say that he did care about having code from 20 years ago that ran today and said that based on Rahul's appearance, it didn't seem that he could have any code from 20 years ago that he'd need to run today, i.e. Rahul is too young. A slight dig, perhaps but not actually an insult. Just didn't want folks to think that McCarthy went out of his way to be rude to folks.
Peter Seibel wrote: > However McCarthy appeared to have > heard him to say that he did care about having code from 20 years ago > that ran today and said that based on Rahul's appearance, it didn't > seem that he could have any code from 20 years ago that he'd need to > run today, i.e. Rahul is too young. A slight dig, perhaps but not > actually an insult.
This is how I interpreted it as well.
The more general question -- Did standardization produce stultification? -- is quite provocative though. Really, there are two questions here:
(1) Has progress in Lisp slowed dramatically since CLtL1? (And this is really what Baker and McCarthy meant by standardization -- the ascension of Common Lisp.)
(2) Did CLtL1 *cause* this slowdown?
IMO, the answer to (1) is "yes" and the answer to (2) is "no." The *real* reason progress slowed -- again, IMO -- was the dramatic drop in both interest in and funding for Lisp following AI Winter, which began around........1984. If this is correct, then standardization was probably critical in keeping the dwindling community together.
This brings up an interesting question: Is the binding constraint of the standard, which was critical during the 1980s and 1990s, gonna choke the community now that it is again showing signs of growth?
It's a real question. One possibility is that as the community grows, so will a parallel movement to open, clean up, modify, and extend the standard. A harbinger of this is the CLRFI process, which is currently trying to bootstrap itself. Another possibility is that the community will split in a healthy way, with business users adhering closely to the standard in the interests of portability, and with academics again experimenting with new features and birthing new dialects.
Christopher C. Stacy wrote: > Kenny Tilton <ktil...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>>* McCarthy actually meant that very little code lasts ten years.
> That would suggest a serious disconnect with reality; > it's a little hard to believe.
Oh. please. You have no knowledge or experience of production code. It /always/ gets thrown way when it needs changing. By the time the corpolopolis acknowledges change is needed, the old code is too rotten to refactor.
ie, No, I was just having fun, JMcC did not really slam Rahul, he just made an easy point: production code regularly gets tossed, because it is so much easier to rewrite than salvage. And if you are re-salvaging, tou may as well change syntax change here and there.
"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
Christopher C. Stacy wrote: > "Sashank Varma" <sashankva...@yahoo.com> writes: > > (1) Has progress in Lisp slowed dramatically since CLtL1? > > (2) Did CLtL1 *cause* this slowdown?
> I think we need "better" basis for a useful > discussion about this, By which I mean: > Define "progress" and "slowdown".
> And do people think that those are mutually exclusive?
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Progress can slow down in the sense of decelerating, i.e., the second derivative is negative. There's no doubt there's been progress over the last 21 years (e.g., the MOP). Question (1) is about whether Lisp has declined from being a fecund source of programming language innovations, as it was in the 1960s and 1970s.
>>> * McCarthy actually meant that very little code lasts ten years.
>> That would suggest a serious disconnect with reality; >> it's a little hard to believe.
> I think he said 20 years, not 10,
Fantastic. We have a new entry for examples of "stupid quibble". Rahul said ten, OK? (As if it fucking matters.)
and I'm not sure he was
> entirely serious.
I think this is the difference between a yobbo and and an intellect.
While everyone was laughing at "you do not look old enough...", and Rahul was protesting that he meant "in the future", McCarthy slipped in the mumble making clear that his point was simply that very little code (from anyone!) lasts long enough to justify freezing a language. Your correspondent can confirm this from <gasp!> actual production dode experience.
Anyone with an iota of an experience in production code knows how fast systems get swapped out, and that was the trivial yet telling point McCarthy made in teasing Rahul and that particular defense of standardization.
"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
>> [apologies if this has materialised in similar form or does so soon >> unbeknownst to me, but from where I sit it appears Google ate a >> similar report posted yesterday via google groups.]
>> Dr. McCarthy joined with Henry Baker, his predecessor at the >> microphone, in bemoaning the standardization of Common Lisp as >> stultifying if not mortifying, in that it ended innovation.
> As much as I like Common Lisp, I think he has a point here.
Please get back to us when you have some application functionality you cannot express in Common Lisp. As much as you think you like CL....
"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
