Joe Marshall  <jrm@content-integrity.com> wrote:
+---------------
| rpw3@rigden.engr.sgi.com (Rob Warnock) writes:
| > ... It is precisely Lisp's "fingernail parings"
| > (list-based notation for program source) that make its powerful macros
| > so incredibly easy to write & maintain. Show me *any* other language[*]
| > with anything close to Lisp's builtin "read" primitive, not to mention
| > providing the *full* language at compile time to reflexively construct
| > arbitrary source programs.
| 
| Mumps might qualify on this point.
+---------------

I stand corrected. Yes, of course MUMPS[*] and SNOBOL were adequate to
the task -- and even MACRO-10, in it's own way. I should have said "any
other modern language that gets bandied about as an alternative to Lisp".


-Rob

[*] MUMPS == Massachusetts (General Hospital) Utility Multi-Programming
System, originally a pure character-by-character interpreter with one
datatype, the string, that had a tree-structured (multi-dimensional
associative array) disk-resident database tightly integrated into the
language. Imagine "Tcl", but with all of the global variables being
persistent database tables, and with built-in multiuser/multitasking
support.

MUMPS was extended over a number of years, and finally standardized in
1977 under the name "M". See <URL:http://www.mcenter.com/mtrc/mfaqhtm1.html>
and <URL:http://www.mcenter.com/mtrc/mfaqhtm2.html>

-----
Rob Warnock, 31-2-510		rpw3@sgi.com
SGI Network Engineering		http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy.		Phone: 650-933-1673
Mountain View, CA  94043	PP-ASEL-IA