Subject: Re: New Lisp ? From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 07:06:44 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.functional Message-ID: <3218425600723749@naggum.net> * israel r t > Lisp needs to reinvent itself. * Andreas Bogk | I suggest to take a look at Dylan. Since the whole thread is a spoof of an article that caused the Scheme community to explode in rage and the resident Dylan fans completely fail to understand that this is a stupid attempt to inflame the Lisp community likewise, but rather once again take part in it with their unsolicited Dylan marketing campaign -- which is no surprise, like Scheme fans, they also erroneously think their language is a Lisp and annoy comp.lang.lisp with marketing for their Lisp-wannabe languages every once in a while -- the conlusion is clear: Dylan is worth a look if and only if Lisp needs to reinvent itself, which it does not need any more than Scheme does. Both Dylan and Scheme have distanced themselves from the Lisp community in a number of important ways, but when they lose ground, they return to their Lisp heritage, and when they gain ground, they point out how Lisp is not longer worth anyone's time. This closely parallels the behavior of immature children who want to distance themselves from their parents as long as they risk nothing by doing so. If Dylan and Scheme were for real, they would make a clean cut with Lisp and attempt to make it on their own without constant references to their heritage, good or bad. "Members of the Lisp family" try to point out much better they are than their parent, whatever "Lisp" as a parent means. Even Paul Graham, the inventor of the silly new toy language "arc", needs to point out how Common Lisp is superior to his new toy by knocking Common Lisp before he has anything to show for himself. Attacking Common Lisp is primarily a way to say "I don't understand feature X, therefore it is must be bad and should be removed". If they spent as much time trying to understand what was going on as they do trying to fight against Common Lisp, they would not need to fight, either. /// -- The past is not more important than the future, despite what your culture has taught you. Your future observations, conclusions, and beliefs are more important to you than those in your past ever will be. The world is changing so fast the balance between the past and the future has shifted.