On Wednesday, May 13, 2015 at 8:00:50 AM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > Why can't a language be designed with a *practical and concrete* need in > mind? As far as I know, only one language designed from theoretical first > principles has had any measure of mainstream success, Lisp, and that was > probably because there weren't that many decent alternatives at the time.
How history U-turns!! Lisp actually got every major/fundamental thing wrong - variables scopes were dynamic by mistake - lambdas were non-first class because the locution 'first-class' was still 8 years in the future And what it got right was more by fluke than by design - gc because the machine word was too small for a refcount but could squeeze in a mark-bit - Syntax: It was intended that a 'proper' (aka Algol-like) syntax was round the corner. The '1.5' in the lisp 1.5 manual was evidence of that interimness To me the most mind-boggling aspect this u-turning of history is this interview with McCarthy: http://www.infoq.com/interviews/Steele-Interviews-John-McCarthy Q: Who helped you with the early ideas Lisp? McCarthy: Backus' Fortran taught me functional programming!!!!! -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
