| Xah Lee 2008-01-12, 8:14 am |
| Rainer Joswig wrote:
$B!V(BWhy don't you just stop telling the Lisp community which words it
should use and which not?$B!W(B
I presented my idea, with detailed reasoning, for the public to
consider. My writings on this issue has now reached over a thousand
words, so i separated it into its own page, now archived at:
http://xahlee.org/emacs/lisp1_vs_lisp2.html
Rainer wrote:
$B!V(BWhy are you writing about it, if don't know much about the technical
issues and the historic context?$B!W(B
Sometimes, when you are a outsider, you can see things clearly, of
which the endianess and the allusion to which ends of eggs to crack,
is fitting. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) used it to mock the political
parties of his time (or perhas the catholics and protestants). And
this is borrowed in modern time to mock the byte order arguments. I,
hereby, borrow it to mock the $B!H(Blisp1 vs lisp2$B!I(B debate.
For example, i tried to show the insignificance of this single/multi-
meaning-space issue, in the context of human animal's computing
activities, and also in context of programing language design. I
showed, in my opinion, it is trivial issue of little practical impact.
And, i argued, that this jargon, is a culprit for this un-important
issue to be perpetually discussed and debated.
Let me ask you a question. What is it, that you fret about whether the
terms lisp1 lisp2 be used?
Kent Pitman, and his affiliation and opinion on these jargons, is
understandable. He, coined, or participated in the coinage, of these
terms. The use and popularity of these terms, spread alone with his
name. And, if we take the cynical view, his actions and beliefs
regarding these jargons spurs from egoism, and that applies to all
human animals.
What, is your vantage on this jargon issue? Trying to uphold some
truth? Annoyed by my what you believe to be disruptive, abnormal, or
specious views?
What is your thought, regarding my main arguments about the
insignificance of this single/multi-meaning-space issue, and how do
you refute that this $B!H(Blisp1 lisp2$B!I(B jargons engender fruitless and
wastful debates?
Xah wrote:
$B!V(BTo people in the lisp communities, i would suggest, to stop using the
term. If necessary, say Common Lisp's model or Scheme Lisp's model.$B!W(B
Rainer wrote:
$B!V(BIt has nothing special to do with 'Common Lisp' or 'Scheme'.
There are some Lisp languages that are Lisp2:
MacLisp, Lisp Machine Lisp, Common Lisp, Emacs Lisp
Others are Lisp1:
Scheme, EuLisp, ISLisp ... $B!W(B
Yeah, of course. Thanks for this historic info. Today, lisp are for
practical purposes just Common Lisp and Scheme Lisp. (and emacs lisp,
AutoLisp and others if you want to count small ones.) So, my
suggestion, of saying Common Lisp's model or Scheme Lisp's model, do
make good sense. I think a more communicative term, would be single-
meaning-space and multi-meaning-space.
Xah wrote:
$B!V(BI do not know much about the technical aspects of Common Lisp's
history. However, i can venture a educated guess. Common Lisp's multi-
meaning-space feature, just like so many of its features (cons, sort,
and semi-regular syntax using nested parens, etc), is simply designed
as is without necessarily explicit, important, rationals. In other
words, it is probably a characteristic that happens to be convient,
easy to implement, or not thought about at the time, or simply went
one way than the other.$B!W(B
Rainer wrote:
$B!V(BThat is wrong. People have thought about these issues quite
a bit.
http://www.dreamsongs.com/Separation.html
[Technical Issues of Separation in Function Cells and Value Cells, by
Richard P Gabriel, Kent M Pitman, 1988]$B!W(B
I don't think you really understood me correctly there. My passage,
from the context, is about why lisp has the multi-meaning-space in the
first place. The paper you cited, is written when this political
struggle is on-going, in consideration of its introduction to Common
Lisp, a post-analysis of the single vs multi meaning-space issue.
The question is, why did lisp(s), has the multi-meaning space in the
first place. Where did it origin? Was it just one lisp or multiple
implementation all started with it, or from a spec? Which is the first
lisp that started with single-meaning-space? And, if there is one
original lisp that started the multi-meaning-space, then, how or why
it is so? How important, or how consciously, was the issue at the time
with this first lisp?
I conjecture (slightly expanded now), that there probably was a first
lisp(s) and it is multi-meaning-space, and the fact of that is not one
of the important design issue but rather one of the million small
characteristics that just happens to be when something comes into
being.
From the paper you cited, in the $B!H(B4. Historical Perspective$B!I(B section,
i quote:
$B!H(BMost Lisp dialects adopted a two-namespace approach to the naming
problem. To some extent this is because most dialects followed Lisp
1.5 [McCarthy 1965] or dialects derived from Lisp 1.5$B!I(B
So, this partly answered our previous questions about the origin.
Further, i quote:
$B!H(BIt seems that the designers of Lisp 1.5 thought of function names as
being different from variable names--the Lisp 1.5 interpreter looked
at the property list of the named atomic symbol first, and so it can
be argued that a function was considered a property of a symbol. The
designers used the terminology that a symbol "stands for" a function
while a variable "refers" to a value.$B!I(B
This gives us some hints about why it was multi-meaning-space. Exactly
why Lisp 1.5 is so, perhaps some lisp historian here can detail. Or
perhaps we can email McCarthy.
The paper did not explicitly mention when did single-meaning-space
came into being. Presumably it was just from Scheme... (you mentioned
EuLisp, ISLisp. Do they come before or after Scheme?)
Xah
xah@xahlee.org
$B-t(B http://xahlee.org/
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