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Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: Lisp history: IF, etc. Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2024 17:56:31 -0300 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 36 Message-ID: <877chbfs00.fsf@yaxenu.org> References: <uu54la$3su5b$6@dont-email.me> <uu6om5$cmv8$1@dont-email.me> <20240329101248.556@kylheku.com> <uu6t9h$dq4d$1@dont-email.me> <20240329104716.777@kylheku.com> <uu8p02$uebm$1@dont-email.me> <20240330112105.553@kylheku.com> <uudrfg$2cskm$1@dont-email.me> <87r0fp8lab.fsf@tudado.org> <uuehdj$2hshe$1@dont-email.me> <87wmpg7gpg.fsf@tudado.org> <LISP-20240402085115@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de> <20240402084057.881@kylheku.com> <86h6gjpq3i.fsf_-_@williamsburg.bawden.org> <m3frw2vlok.fsf@leonis4.robolove.meer.net> <86cyr6pb2l.fsf@williamsburg.bawden.org> <875xwy412p.fsf@nightsong.com> <868r1up0wk.fsf@williamsburg.bawden.org> <871q7m3wrj.fsf@nightsong.com> <86zfu9ooux.fsf@williamsburg.bawden.org> <87frw03b4j.fsf@nightsong.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2024 20:56:35 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="1d17e5fb4a6d76076c70bf793d4b7893"; logging-data="1692832"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/Rw1jteOhcbIOQ5oykO6V43hC9Eb0cLVQ=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:LlvRfCWgZLh+wzISmz9y7+PTn98= sha1:e8FJ6tr3fBaCK7Rg4gosUhmqjFA= Bytes: 3553 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> writes: > Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu> writes: >> It's a common misconception that McCarthy was trying to turn Lambda >> Calculus into a programming language. ... He added LAMBDA (and LABEL) >> because he needed LAMBDA in order to define recursive functions, but >> as he himself often admitted, he didn't really understand Lambda >> Calculus, he just needed the notation. > > I see, yes, and this is confirmed by his History of Lisp article. His > Wikipedia biography also surprised me a bit. For some reason I had > thought of him as an academic mathematical logician who later somehow > got involved with computers, but it was more like the other way around. > Thanks. His PhD was in mathematics---differential equations. He would think up things like a simple function that is continuous but nowhere differentiable on the real line [1]. He was a mathematician by all accounts. It's pretty hard to remove mathematics from computer science. The culture seems to be that if a mathematician contributes more to the field of computer science, he is called a computer scientist. I also agree that he was a logician: he worked on a mathematical basis for computer science. A mathematical basis for computer science must be classified as logic. He was interested in proving programs were correct. His idea of a conditional expression is precisely to write mathematical functions in high precision. Mathematics in high precision---that's a logician. The creation of LISP by John McCarthy was surely not at first with intention of a programming language. In fact, it was Steve Russell, his student at the time, that first had the idea of implementing EVAL and did it. I believe McCarthy was even somewhat surprised because, then, he did not think of LISP having that kind of purpose. [1] https://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/weierstrass.pdf