problems/risks ...

Jeff Dalton jeff at aiai.ed.ac.uk
Wed Mar 14 09:16:40 AEST 1990


In article <8315 at hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu at hubcap.clemson.edu writes:
 >      [...] In particular, the original objectives of Lisp were:
 >
 >         o ease of algorithm prototyping
 >         o concise programs (no declarations)
 >         o powerful data and control structures
 >         o very general constructs
 >         o rich programming environments
 >         o incremental development
 >         o fast compilation
 >         o ease of debugging

These are *not* the original objectives for Lisp.  They are some much
more recent list from I know not where.

 >      ...Many existing Lisp systems attempt to provide both software
 >      development and applications delivery with the same software.
 >      Their "solution" to the problem of efficient code for application
 >      delivery is to perform debugging with the SAFETY parameter set to
 >      the highest level; when sufficient confidence has been reached with
 >      the program, more efficiency is gained (at the expense of safety) by
 >      setting SAFETY to the lowest level.

This is Common Lisp, not Lisp in general.

This study seemed to be somewhat confused about what was Lisp and what
was Common Lisp or Lisp Machines or particular implementations etc.

-- Jeff



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