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Re: A Dylan FAQ (was Re: Good book on Dylan)

In article <slrn9cq9sc.j4h.neelk@alum.mit.edu>, neelk@alum.mit.edu 
wrote:

> > o So was is taken from Bob Dylan or Dylan Thomas?
> 
> Dylan Thomas. 

False.


> > o Wasn't Dylan used for programming Newtons?
> 
> Someone y

At one point it was thought that this might happen, but in the end the 
Newton used an interpreted prototype-based (rather than 
inheritance-based) OO language called "NewtonScript".


> >2. Ancestry.
> >
> > o Is Dylan a form of Lisp?
> 
> Yes, to the same extent that Scheme is a Lisp. You can think of Dylan
> as the offspring of Scheme and CLOS, and you won't be too far wrong.

As long as you don't say so on comp.lang.lisp, where they dont even 
think Scheme is a Lisp.


> >o What happened to the Lisp syntax?
> 
> [This is a guess.]
> 
> It went away when macros were added -- when you write a macro in one
> synatx, there's no way to autogenerate macros for the other syntax.
> As a result, this meant that keeping two syntaxes would be painful,
> and one went away. It happened to be the Lisp syntax.

Which interestingly enough is the reverse of Lisp itself, where Johm 
McCarthy originally intended S-expressions to be just a temporary form 
until the real syntax was developed/implemented.

 
> > o Where can I find a copy of the Lisp syntax?
> 
> [Don't know]

You can still find DEC WRL's "Thomas" implementation of Lisp-syntax 
Dylan on the net, including a version embedded into Gambit Scheme.

-- Bruce
References: