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Re: terra incognita

• To: Joe English <jenglish@f...>, xml-dev@l...,Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
• Subject: Re: terra incognita
• From: David Brownell <david-b@p...>
• Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 22:50:03 -0800
• References: <022d01c186e1$3fa7ce10$0500a8c0@carnage><5.1.0.14.2.20011216205651.02475de0@p...><200112171633.IAA06975@d...>

> > > At the end of the day code and data just aren't that much
> > > like each other.  Maybe this is why Lisp never took over the
> > > world, cool though it is.  -Tim

Personally, I think the deal with LISP was that it's a bit too advanced
a programming language for most folk.   Plus it was never pitched
for commercial applications -- it was aimed at folk who really didn't
have an issue with syntax, and whose problems didn't revolve around
databases and report generation.  Even the M-expression notation
didn't get around that.


> > It is very interesting that you say this. I've seen a few people
> > from the Lisp camp complain that XML is simply a more verbose
> > yet less powerful reinvention of Lisp S-expressions with a lot of
> > extra complexity added in (like namespaces, attributes and entity
> > references). [Dale Obasanjo ]
> 
> You have to take that with a grain of salt though.
> There are folks in the Lisp camp who say that about
> *every* new programming technology.  "What's the big
> deal about X?  It's just a poorly reinvented version
> of feature Y in Common Lisp." [Joe English]

Those criticisms (less powerful, more verbose etc) have
more than a grain of truth to them though.

Consider:  send an S-Expression over TCP and (eval) ...
that's "write once, run everywhere" about 30 years before
certain marketroids decided it was a good idea.   And
that's just one many examples ... :)

- Dave

• Follow-Ups:
  • s-expressions and XML was Re: terra incognita
    • From: "Jonathan Borden" <jborden@m...>
  • Re: terra incognita
    • From: Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn@r...>

• References:
  • Re: terra incognita
    • From: "Dare Obasanjo" <kpako@y...>
  • Re: terra incognita
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
  • Re: terra incognita
    • From: Joe English <jenglish@f...>

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