Comment by sahil-kang

5 years ago

I think you can draw this ‘core of an environment’ parallel between Forth and Scheme: both are small languages and they emphasize growing the language to the problem domain [1]. Common Lisp, on the other hand, is a large language: implementations provide much more than a foundational core, and a fairly comprehensive list of libraries exists. I think RPG’s Worse Is Better highlights some of the reasons why CL isn’t as popular as other languages [2].

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0

[2] https://www.dreamsongs.com/WIB.html

1 comment

sahil-kang

pkage 5 years ago

Off topic, but this (from RPG's Worse is Better) sounds very familiar:

> Part of the problem stems from our very dear friends in the artificial intelligence (AI) business. AI has a number of good approaches to formalizing human knowledge and problem solving behavior. However, AI does not provide a panacea in any area of its applicability. Some early promoters of AI to the commercial world raised expectation levels too high. These expectations had to do with the effectiveness and deliverability of expert-system-based applications.