LISP
:LISP: n. [from `LISt Processing language', but mythically from `Lots of
Irritating Superfluous Parentheses'] AI's mother tongue, a language
based on the ideas of (a) variable-length lists and trees as fundamental
data types, and (b) the interpretation of code as data and vice-versa.
Invented by John McCarthy at MIT in the late 1950s, it is actually older
than any other HLL
still in use except FORTRAN. Accordingly, it has
undergone considerable adaptive radiation over the years; modern
variants are quite different in detail from the original LISP 1.5. The
dominant HLL among hackers until the early 1980s, LISP now shares the
throne with C
Its partisans claim it is the only language that is
truly beautiful. See languages of choice
All LISP functions and programs are expressions that return values;
this, together with the high memory utilization of LISPs, gave rise to
Alan Perlis's famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar Wilde quote) that
"LISP programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing".
One significant application for LISP has been as a proof by example
that most newer languages, such as COBOL
and Ada
are full of
unnecessary crock
s. When the Right Thing
has already been done once,
there is no justification for bogosity
in newer languages.
Jargon File Version 4.3.1, 29 JUN 2001 =
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