Re:What Made Lisp Different (2002)
by copper_think on Sunday February 18, 2018 @08:20PM
(#16410082)
The garbage collector for Microsoft's Common Language Runtime (CLR -- the VM for .NET) was written in Lisp originally and then transpiled into C.
Also, Apple's Interface Builder began its life as a Lisp program: http://vimeo.com/62618532
Postgres started as a Lisp program, and turned out to be too difficult to develop in a mix of C and Lisp.
The Objectstore database was developed by former Lispers, who wrote an earlier object-oriented database in Lisp.
Re:What Made Lisp Different (2002)
by mark_l_watson on Sunday February 18, 2018 @10:02PM
(#16410456)
+1 for mentioning my friend Denny. I wrote an application that Experteliigence sold for me - lots of fun. Expertelligence had a high talent density.
But that was at a time when more people learned Lisp, there was less choice in tools and the eco-systems were smaller. In the 70s/80s one could buy ten years into the future with the right hardware/software and government/military was financing.
Take for example the Connection Machine CM 1, an early massive-parallel computer with 2^16 processors. It was initially developed largely for and with Lisp. You could program it in *Lisp from a Lisp Machine - one of the most expensive co-processors. Fortran and C was added then for certain commercial users. Very expensive stuff and at least ten years ahead.
Today the landscape looks different.