On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 3:19 PM, Kurt Stephens <k...@kurtstephens.com> wrote:
> Alejandro F. Reimondo wrote: > >> John, >> >Where else should I look? >> In my opinion what is "missing" in the languages >> formulations is sustainability of the system. [*] >> In case of formula/abstract based declaration of systems >> all alternatives make people put on the idea(L) side >> and not in the system itself (the natural side). >> Smalltalk is the only alternative of sustainable system >> development used commertially today. >> > > Smalltalk did not spawn an entire industry of specialized hardware like > Lisp. However Lisp hardware is a collector's item now. :) > > There are plenty of commercial projects using Common Lisp today and from > what I can tell, there has been renewed, grassroots interest in Lisp (CL and > Scheme) over the last 5 years. Smalltalk is not the only alternative. Both > have ANSI standard specifications. > > KAS > > Have you read the Lisp Lore [1] book for a history of Lisp machines? I am personally just 25 years old, and have been trying to buy a Symbolics Genera machine on eBay for a year now, and just can't get one at a reasonable price. However, what I read in [1] is that the systems inherently were unstable in terms of dynamic reconfiguration (Ale's main point about openness). I personally believe any system should inherently support superstabilization in its core. Superstabilization is generalization of Dijkstra's definition of system stability. If necessary. I can quote pages from this book that mentions the instability of reconfiguring the system. [1] LISP Lore: A Guide to Programming the LISP Machine by H. Bromley, Richard Lamson ISBN-13: 978-0898382280
_______________________________________________ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
