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Message from discussion ILC2005: McCarthy denounces Common Lisp, "Lisp", XML, and Rahul
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Pascal Costanza  
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 More options Jun 23 2005, 9:50 pm
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
From: Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 18:50:52 -0700
Local: Thurs, Jun 23 2005 9:50 pm
Subject: Re: ILC2005: McCarthy denounces Common Lisp, "Lisp", XML, and Rahul

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/


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