Re:Ten predictions (2004)
by lkrubner on Friday February 15, 2013 @11:12AM
(#5226833)
You are perhaps aware that the Death Of Lisp happened in between the first date and the current date? The Golden Age Of Lisp was during the 1970s and 1980s when the USA Defense Department put substantial funds into AI research, and the favored language for AI research was Lisp. And, to a degree, the Lisp community became dependent on that money. If you look up some of the famous companies that put together Lisp-oriented machines circa 1980, there was the clear assumption that money from the Defense Department would continue forever. However, Communism collapsed in 1989 and from the Reagan build-up of the 1980s to the demobilization under Clinton in the 1990s, the USA spending on the military shifted from almost 9% of GDP to roughly 4% of GDP. There were cutbacks in research spending. And this lead to the Great Death Of Lisp.
However, good ideas are resilient even if the face of death. People such as Paul Graham kept the flame alive. People like Rich Hickey brought it into the modern age. There is no question that Lisp is on the comeback trail.
There is also, of course, the broader victory of Lisp: the impact it has had on all other languages. Paul Graham wrote about that here:
However, good ideas are resilient even if the face of death. People such as Paul Graham kept the flame alive. People like Rich Hickey brought it into the modern age. There is no question that Lisp is on the comeback trail.
There is also, of course, the broader victory of Lisp: the impact it has had on all other languages. Paul Graham wrote about that here:
http://www.paulgraham.com/diff.html