The LISP 2 Project (2017)

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8267589

by mepian • 3 years ago

61 13 3 years ago

ieeexplore.ieee.org

cf https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/lisp2/TM-...

lispm2• 3 years ago

The actual LISP 2 project to update LISP 1.5 (also conceptually, for example with a new syntax) was done in the mid 1960s. It was famous for its failure.

From 2017 is the work done to collect historical documents, source code, etc. about the LISP 2 project.

pmcjones2• 3 years ago

Actually, the collection work took place around 2005-2010. I wrote the first draft of the paper in 2012, but didn't submit it for publication until 2017.

lispm2• 3 years ago

As always, many thanks for your work! :-)

timonoko2• 3 years ago

Lisp with Algol-like syntax was of course Mulisp (1977). It was so beautiful and complete that it was end of history. Everything else thereafter is just endless recycling same old shit. When you have clear rules between these two forms, you can implement macros effectively. Algol-programming department need not do macros anyway, because they are too stupid.

http://www.edm2.com/index.php/MuLISP

r9550684• 3 years ago

(hello, you are one of the people that have greatly inspired me many years go!

in the early hackerspace days there was a lot of talk of diy, but it was a kind of consumer lifestyle thing, like stitching a new strap to your laptop backpack. I think the accounts of your projects, and your adventures, put me in the direction of thinking of diy as not some kind of external activity, but as the default mode of living. solving problems from first principles, refining them from experience, solving your own problems with solutions that are fundamentally superior to off the shelf consumer stuff, because they are driven by your own needs and knowledge and experience.

my vessel of choice is a dinghy, and it's built from a kit, and the waters I navigate are much gentler than yours, but everything else is diy and jury rigged, and I sometimes would say some solution is "in the spirit of timonoko", and sometimes people ask "who's timonoko" and I say "oh it's this crazy cool Finnish kayaking guy, he wrote his own navigation software from first principles, and he wrote his own lisp, and he got into all kinds of amazing kayaking adventures"

so, thank you!)

timonoko2• 3 years ago

This is the way.

kazinator• 3 years ago

This looks like the implementation:

https://github.com/jlfaucher/FormMath/blob/master/SRC/MUSIMP...

Curiously, the comments are in French.

lioeters• 3 years ago

An entertaining read. The technical reason why LISP 2 failed was the limited memory (42K) of the Q32, but there seems to have been fundamental issues in the conception of the language.

Even if the project had had more mature leadership, it probably could not have overcome the unfortunate choice of an ALGOL-like syntax and type system, overemphasis on compiled code efficiency, and the obscure choice of first machine to build for.. LISP’s fundamental strengths were lost in LISP 2’s design.

pmcjones2• 3 years ago

(Author of _Annals_ paper here.)

nielsbot2• 3 years ago

Sounds a bit like Dylan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_(programming_language)

"Dylan is a multi-paradigm programming language...created in the early 1990s by a group led by Apple Computer."

"Dylan derives...from Scheme and other Lisps;...However, Dylan has an ALGOL-like syntax instead of a Lisp-like prefix syntax."

lproven• 3 years ago

I've long thought that Dylan is the single most promising programming language which went nowhere that I've seen in some 40 years in the computing field.

nielsbot2• 3 years ago

Alas they didn’t get it done in time for the Newton.

NewtonScript was also pretty cool tho.

The LISP 2 Project (2017)

Related Stories