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From: myfirstname.mylastn...@jpl.nasa.gov (Erann Gat)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: My take on ARC
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 13:10:35 -0700
Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab
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In article <uZWkb.6442761$cI2.918...@news.easynews.com>, Doug Tolton
<d...@nospam.com> wrote:

> In essence he is contemplating the possibility of designing a language 
> today that could still be in use 100 years from now.

Lisp is almost half way there.  Scheme is about a quarter of the way
there.  Common Lisp is about 1/5 of the way there.

> When you start 
> looking at it from this point of view you have to question some of the 
> basic concepts in use today.  For instance, if all your numbers are 
> implemented in a highly machine dependent way, it makes it more 
> difficult to port the language to different architectures, not to 
> mention architectures we haven't even though of yet.

Not everything changes that fast.  The theory of numbers, for example, has
been pretty much worked out.  The IEEE Floating Point standard was
developed by people who pretty much knew what they were doing and I think
it's likely to stand the test of time.  Likewise for the Common Lisp
numerical library.  I see no need to reinvent these wheels even to support
the 100-year-langage goal.  100 years is not that long in the grand and
glorious scheme of things.

> I think he is pursuing a worthwhile goal.  The languages I use today 
> have primarily been designed to solve the problems of yesterday, many of 
> them aren't that great for the problems of today (except Lisp of course 
> :) ).  To take a different approach and try to look towards the future 
> is a good change of perspective IMO.

I agree, except that I don't think ARC is taking a different approach, at
least not technically.  From what I've seen ARC is so far just retreading
well-worn paths of language design.  Politically ARC is new in that it is
the first Lisp dialect developed by a BDFL (STFW!), but technically it
seems to me all but indistinguishable from Scheme (sans call/cc) at this
point.

E.