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Re: The Lambda Nature



In article <ln1wds3v.fsf_-_@lambda.unlambda.com>, james@fredbox.com (James
A. Crippen) wrote:

> Spending time immersed in the Scheme language (and related Lispish and
> functional languages) and in historical documents of the AI lab
> cultures will invariably assist you in understanding not only the
> superficial culture of the hackish crowd, its lore, and history, but
> also will aid you in understanding the underlying ideas and motives
> that produced such languages as Scheme.  Probably one of the simpler
> windows into the culture is a dated but still relevant paper by
> Richard Gabriel,
>   http://www.ai.mit.edu/docs/articles//good-news/good-news.html
> .  This is a somewhat non-technical, short paper describing why the
> Lisp community as of ten years ago failed to succeed as well as it
> could have in the face of microcomputers, Unix, and poorly educated C
> hackers.  It's well worth the read, and RPG not only defends his
> thesis well but brings up many sensitive topics rarely broached
> amongst the Lisp hacker community.

I read this paper some years ago, but just now re-read it.

My questions for the assembled masses is:

  - where are we now, ten years later?
  - What is this "next LISP" of which he speaks? (in
    <http://www.ai.mit.edu/docs/articles/good-news/subsection3.3.6.html>

-- Bruce



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