Differences between version 15 and previous revision of LISP.
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| Newer page: | version 15 | Last edited on Friday, November 21, 2003 8:32:55 pm | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
| Older page: | version 14 | Last edited on Thursday, November 20, 2003 11:20:06 pm | by StuartYeates | Revert |
@@ -1,17 +1,17 @@
-The name is an
[Acronym] for __Lis__t __P__rocessor.
+An
[Acronym] for __Lis__t __P__rocessor.
-It is the canonical FunctionalProgrammingLanguage
. EdsgerWybeDijkstra [approves | http://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/IMMD8/Services/SchemeTeach/Pages/ch1/sec3_42.html] of it.
-
-There was an attempt to build lisp-oriented hardware devices known as [LispMachine]s. This failed, but it is not clear whether it failed because it was an inherently worse way to build hardware or whether it was just sufficiently different that it couldn't compete with conventional hardware because of the economies of scale in design, manufacturing and integration
.
+It is the canonical functional ProgrammingLanguage
. EdsgerWybeDijkstra [approves | http://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/IMMD8/Services/SchemeTeach/Pages/ch1/sec3_42.html] of it.
The secret to reading [LISP] is to look at the indenting. You will go mad if you count the brackets. The secret to writing [LISP] is to always use an editor such as [Emacs] that autoindents [LISP] code and highlights matching brackets for you.
The name [LISP] has really come to denote a family of [ProgrammingLanguage]s in practice:
; [CommonLisp] : Standardised, heavy-duty Lisp - "the most thorough programming language in the universe".
; [Scheme] : Elegant intellectual Lisp. Coding acrobats do their backflips here.
; [Elisp] : The scripting language controls every aspect of [Emacs].
+
+[LISP] is usually run on a VirtualMachine, although modern [LISP] implementations can compile to MachineCode. At the time of its conception, [CPU]s were so slow that requiring a VirtualMachine made [LISP] programs infeasible as an implementation language for real world applications. It was therefor attempted to build processors that could run [LISP] directly - so called [LISP] machines. Like any other attempt to date to realize a certain VirtualMachine in hardware, [LISP] machines too failed to achieve any significance in the market and were soon forgotten.
!!Interesting Links
* QuickLispTutorial
