Re:The Interlisp Programming Environment (1981) [pdf]
by ScottBurson on Sunday June 30, 2013 @10:02PM
(#5968213)
> I suspect the comparison to Symbolics Genera would be the analog of comparing a GUI desktop environment to a console-based one
Huh? The MIT-class Lisp Machines also had GUIs from the beginning. Clunky by modern standards, as you say, but definitely graphical.
Maybe I just don't get what analogy you're trying to draw.
Re:The Interlisp Programming Environment (1981) [pdf]
by fractallyte on Monday July 01, 2013 @07:39AM
(#5969942)
Yes, you're right - I was mistaken (I was thinking of Slime/Emacs). Genera had a proper hierarchical window system - screenshots just don't do it justice!
More intriguingly - and again, analogous to Smalltalk - Interlisp is more than just another Lisp dialect: it's a complete operating system running atop a Lisp VM, with Lisp as the system language, from top to bottom. Awesome!
By today's standards, it's clunky (as one would expect), but if development had continued, I suspect the comparison to Symbolics Genera would be the analog of comparing a GUI desktop environment to a console-based one. Considering the richness of modern environments (have you seen Pharo or Squeak?), that could've been a seriously cool Lisp development platform...
Incidentally, ParEdit is based on Interlisp's SEdit (in Taylor Campbell's words, 'a real structure editor, not a cheesy imitation like paredit').