Real-time programming in Common Lisp

Allard, James Robert; Hawkinson, Lowell

doi:10.1145/114669.114679

Cited by 9 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…This of course should be tempered with a lot of appreciation for the neatness Of it all. Try doing metacircular definitions in C without writing an enth-e compiler [Allard & Hawkinson, 1991] note that performance must be designed into the program "from the ground up." It is not something to veneer on later, with desultory declarations and embarrassed inlinings.…”

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confidence: 99%

Bungee jumping off the ivory tower

Hodgkinson¹

1993

Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Lisp Users and Vendors - LUV '93

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From the viewpoint of at least one corporate consumer of computer education, Lisp-based training confers many professional advantages, even if the student never goes on to use Lisp in real life. Among these advantages are a grasp of computer science fundamentals that comes from simply knowing the Lisp language (Whorf was right, in this domain at least) and good software engineering habits (incremental development, abstraction, modularity, object-orientation). These habits are widely believed to be advantages, but Lisp is not widely seen as helping students acquire them. This paper will corroborate the connection between Lispbased training and these good habits. On the other hand, some of these habits may not be good at all (this is one reading of Gabriel's "worse is better" theory). This paper will argue that Lisp-based training is more flexible than training based on popular imperative languages at discouraging the bad in these habits. Then this paper will describe some true drawbacks of Lisp-based training. These drawbacks include stylistic jingoism, excessive delegation of performance issues to the Lisp implementor or to the machine, superstitious avoidance of the more complex (albeit more casually implemented) Lisp facilities, stubborn reluctance to distinguish between compilation, runtime, and delivery environments, and a tendency to make use of Lisp's extensibility to re-invent the wheel merely because the tread size is not quite right. Ironically, Lisp itself contains the cure for the diseases it spreads. This paper concludes by offering, from real-world experience, some suggestions for modification, not abandonment, of Lisp-based training.Why teach computer fundamentals using an arcane, ancient language that has found limited use in the world beyond the ivory tower? Why not use a language that is found everywhere, or build a special pedagogical language from scratch? Arguments about the best way to conduct computer education can go on without end, but unfortunately, Darwin always has the last word. If the Lisp language is too fascinating for its own good, then using it to train computer professionals is illconceived, as ill-conceived as the topheavy tail feathers that make a bird of paradise tip over as soon as it displays them. If, on the other hand, the marketplace rewards elegance, universality, and flexibility, then Lisp can substantially augment a student's fitness to survive when jumping off the ivory tower.

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confidence: 99%