Subject: Re: Java vs lisp (was: Re: Prolog vs. Lisp) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1997/04/04 Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3069141939866666@naggum.no> * Brian Rogoff | I don't understand your point. Java has multithreading as part of | the language standard. See | | http://www.javasoft.com/doc/language_specification/17.doc.html | | if you don't believe me. This is a fact. Whether or not you like the | particular choice of multithreading primitives, and whether or not extant | implementations support it fully, is not what I am arguing. ANSI Common | Lisp has no primitives for multithreading. That Franz, Harlequin, and | others may provide multithreaded implementations is also outside the | scope of my argument, but I certainly don't think I was "grossly unfair". | The thread packages in Common Lisp implementations are vendor specific. | Do you dispute this? I hate it when people are fully aware they don't understand the point and yet go on imply that I don't believe or dispute simple facts. puh-lease! the point is simply that both Java and Common Lisp implementations include multithreading, but because of practical problems in the standard process for ANSI Common Lisp (i.e., obtaining consensus), it is not included in the standard. all Common Lisp systems have good debuggers, foreign function interfaces, editors, inspectors, etc, most of which are at best only hinted at in the standard. Java is a specification closer to the implementation, and intentionally so. considering this, it's grossly unfair to compare the language, and not the implementations. #\Erik -- I'm no longer young enough to know everything.