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Re: Dylan (DYnamic LANguage) -- what's the deal?

Jonathan Coupe in gentlemanly fashion wrote on Sat, 5 Aug 2000:

> Mentifex <mentifex@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> 8mgjlr$6vq$1@nnrp1.deja.com">news:8mgjlr$6vq$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
>> On Sun.30.Jul.2000 I perused a paper by Peter Norvig and
>> David Cohn called "Adaptive Software" at the URL
>> http://www.norvig.com/adapaper-pcai.html on the Web.
>>
>> The authors seemed to make a wild and irresponsible claim
>> that with Dylan, it was possible for a running program to
>> grow and add new functionality on the fly, so to speak,
>> that is, without stopping the program and re-coding it.
>>
>> Arthur T. Murray
>> mentifex@scn.org
>>
>
> Arthur -
>
> The capability you refer to is entirely standard for the
> Lisp family of languges, of which Dylan is a member.
> Far from being exotic, it's a capability
> that's decades old and is shared by several other languages.
>
> What puzzles me is that you've posted constantly (often on
> inappropriate groups) concerning AI for years, and yet you
> don't know such a basic fact about the most common of all
> AI languages, Lisp.
ATM:
With my B.A. degree in ancient Greek and Latin, I can't claim
to be much of a programmer; I just barely get along with
http://www.geocities.com/mentifex/mind4th.html Forth PD AI.

I guess I don't learn very many languages; I just pick up
"nuggets" about them, as I did from Norvig's and Cohen's paper.
Theory of how language may work in the brain-mind is my forte:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/7256/theory5.html q.v.

> Even AI programmers who work in Prolog or C++ normally find it
> necessary to be able to read Lisp, so that they can evaluate
> and learn from their fellows' work.
>
> Peter Norvig is one of the most valuable and talented members
> of both the AI and computer language communities.
> You might want to keep words like "wild and irresponsible"
> further away from his name - and indeed anyone else's name,
ATM:
Here I do have a valid excuse.  I pre-pended "seemed to"
and then I trying-to-be-witty used those outrageous words
just to express my neophyte-programmer astonishment at the
idea that a running program could go through changes.  I
hope that it was obvious to everybody that I was not maligning
Peter Norvig, just trying to show my surprise (and this is
not an after-the-facts cowardly excuse, but the truth).

> until you have real reason to use such terms. If you want
> to learn more about AI, Lisp, or computer languages, then reading one
> or more of Peter Norvig's books would be an excellent place to start.
>
> Jonathan Coupe

Thank you most sincerely for your kind help.

Arthur T. Murray
mentifex@scn.org
References: