cunning Scheme - Re: LISP [was RE: John McCarthy]

... Back in the early days, when dinoLisps roamed the earth, there was a very successful variant called MACLISP. This ran on PDP-10s, ... At the same time, over at the MIT AI Lab, people were experimenting with new progamming languages all the time, and the best language for implementing new programming languages was LISP, and the best LISP was MACLISP. These folks were looking into problem-solving systems, and the first successful language of this type was PLANNER. This was followed by CONNIVER. Then, like a little mammaLisp among the dinoLisps, there arose SCHEME. This was written, like the others in MACLISP, and showed its dinoLisp DNA in places. SCHEME fell into the hands of the smaller-is-better enthusiasts, and had more and more of its origins trimmed away with each new revision. It is nearly perfect. This makes it hard to use, hard even to grasp, except by those who spend all of their time concentrating only on Scheme.[3]

... So while Scheme and Emacs Lisp and Common Lisp appear very different, they have at their hearts the same DNA. Hmm, I guess I did have a lot to say about it. Sorry 'bout that. ... Rich Alderson