Warren Teitelman, "Why Lisp?", 20 August 1976

[Paul McJones]

I ran across the message below while researching the history of Mesa (Robert Garner had scanned printed copies of David Boggs’ email from the era, and kindly searched it for occurrences of the keyword “Mesa”), and thought you folks would appreciate it. The plain text below was recovered via Acrobat’s OCR, and appears to be accurate, but the PDF is an image sent by Robert).

Paul

[Paolo Amoroso]

Thanks Paul, this is interesting also because I always assumed Teitelman was in some way aware of Sandewall working on the paper, or contributed feedback prior to publication. Instead Teitelman apparently ran across the paper once published.

On Fri, Jan 2, 2026 at 6:59 PM Paul McJones <pa...@mcjones.org> wrote:

I ran across the message below while researching the history of Mesa (Robert Garner had scanned printed copies of David Boggs’ email from the era, and kindly searched it for occurrences of the keyword “Mesa”), and thought you folks would appreciate it. The plain text below was recovered via Acrobat’s OCR, and appears to be accurate, but the PDF is an image sent by Robert).

Paul

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20-AUG-76 16:19:27-POT;1358;000000000001

Date: 20 AUG 1976 1619-PDT

From: TEITELMAN

Subject: Why Lisp?

To: CSL:, SSL:

many people have been rightfully after me for years to try to

get onto paper my ideas about Interlisp and what makes it

different from other systems. People have also been asking why do

we continue to use Lisp instead of Mesa, etc. I just received a paper by

Erik Sandewall entitled Programming in an Interactive Environment:

The LISP Experience, which filled me with "I wish I'd said that" feelings.

In this excellent paper, Erik examines what it is about Lisp

(not just Interlisp) that makes it unique in a number of ways,

exactly what features and characteristics need to be present

in a language to permit the style of developing programs

that Lisp permits, the advantages and disadvantages of

same,e tc. etc. Erik is familiar with Mac lisp, as well as Interlisp for

the 370, and has sufficient perspective to compare the various lisps,

their strengths and weaknesses. He articulates a number

of things that I knew intuitively, but had been unable to express

in quite as clear a fashion. The paper is also well written and

well organized. I would encourage anyone interested in what we

have learned as a result of the lisp experience over the last ten years

to read it. i am having copies made, so sndmsg if you would like one.

warren

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Paolo Amoroso | Blog | Mastodon

[Larry Masinter]

I don't think we understood the concepts we were enabling that would have allowed us to distinguish the essential elements of the Interlisp environment as I think we might be able to articulate now.   

* late binding, macros, the "file package" the GET- COPY MOVE- DEF functions allowing us to treat a program more like a database than like a linear listing.  

There are some gaps in the "file package" model that prevent Masterscope analysis from being complete or reliably correct -- things set up with MOVDs, for example, and the multiple models of "object-oriented" code.

https://LarryMasinter.net  https://interlisp.org

On Fri, Jan 2, 2026 at 9:59 AM Paul McJones <pa...@mcjones.org> wrote:

I ran across the message below while researching the history of Mesa (Robert Garner had scanned printed copies of David Boggs’ email from the era, and kindly searched it for occurrences of the keyword “Mesa”), and thought you folks would appreciate it. The plain text below was recovered via Acrobat’s OCR, and appears to be accurate, but the PDF is an image sent by Robert).

Paul