A Lifetime in Lisp
IBM distinguished engineer believes Eisenhower-era language is a good on-ramp for teaching threaded programming
September 15, 2007 —
(Page 1 of 2)
Although bobby socks and Edsels are safely in the past, a classic programming language may be making a comeback.
In 1972, Richard Gabriel found himself tasked with the job of making a video camera move according to programmed actions. The project was created inside MIT's AI Lab, where Gabriel was then a student, and in order to accomplish this task, he was forced to learn Lisp. A Fortran programmer prior to this, Gabriel found himself learning to program in a language that would come to be a part of his life for the next 35 years and beyond. Along the way, he discovered that Lisp offered numerous benefits to students and first-time programmers—benefits that are still not available anywhere else, even though Lisp was first specified almost half a century ago, in 1958.
Today, Gabriel works at IBM, recently joining the company as a distinguished engineer. In this capacity, he said that he's noticed a recent upswing in Lisp usage in Europe. The language remains popular among researchers, especially those working with artificial intelligence, said Gabriel. But despite the language's age, there are even some groups in Europe that use Lisp as the back end for Web sites, he said.
But Gabriel sees another place where Lisp can help in modern computer society, as one of the oldest languages to incorporate a threaded programming model. This, combined with Lisp's generally obvious syntax, means that Lisp is a great first language for budding computer scientists.
Gabriel spent a great deal of his career working with such students, both at MIT and at Stanford University. He noted that, in the 1980s, a great deal of work was done around multithreaded Lisp programs. “The actual models used back in the day and the ones used today are pretty darned similar. One difference is that in the Lisp world, the types are attached to objects at runtime, so you don't have to be as wordy in describing the types to the compiler,” said Gabriel.
Share this link: http://sdt.bz/31168
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible
|
|
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
|
|
Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers
|
|
ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development
|
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
|
|
Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists
|
|
Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles
|
|
Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions
|
Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
|
|
Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
|
|
RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
|
|
GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
|
The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing
Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...
|
|
Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic
As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...
|
|
Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank
One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...
|
|
Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications
Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...
|