home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!paladin.american.edu!news.univie.ac.at!hp4at!mcsun!sunic!ugle.unit.no!NewsWatcher!user
- From: agnar.aamodt@ifi.unit.no (Agnar Aamodt)
- Subject: Re: Origins of LISP and relation with Fortran
- Message-ID: <agnar.aamodt-231292131408@129.241.164.107>
- Followup-To: comp.lang.lisp
- Sender: news@ugle.unit.no (NetNews Administrator)
- Organization: University of Trondheim, Department of Informatics
- References: <1992Dec22.134446.170228@circe.fr>
- Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 12:26:19 GMT
- Lines: 34
-
- In article <1992Dec22.134446.170228@circe.fr>, girou@circe.fr (Denis Girou)
- wrote:
-
- > Some years ago, one of my teacher says during a lesson that when John
- > McCarthy, around 1956, think to that will become LISP, he only want to write
- > an extension to the Fortran language (Fortran I or Fortran II at this time)
- > to manipulate lists structures. It would be only later that he thought to a
- > real new language, completely independant of Fortran.
- >
- > Is there somebody who can confirm or infirm this fact, and can give me a
- > bibliographic reference? (it's for an article about Fortran that I have to
- > write...)
- >
-
- The primary need was, I think, for an algebraic list procesing language,
- and Fortran was one of the candidates for a start-out platform. Fortran
- List Processing Language (FLPL) was developed by other poeple than
- McCarthy, who decided to set out for a new language.
-
- A reference:
- McCarthy, J.:
- History of Lisp. ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Vol.13, no.8, August 1978, pp 5-11.
-
- Agnar Aamodt
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Agnar Aamodt (Ph.D) | Email: agnar@ifi.unit.no
- Department of Informatics | Fax: +47-7-591733
- College of Arts and Sciences |
- University of Trondheim | Phone: (office): +47-7-591838
- N-7055 Dragvoll | Phone: (secr.): +47-7-591840
- NORWAY | Phone: (home): +47-7-977365
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-