From ...
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Subject: Re: Which one, Lisp or Scheme?
Date: 1997/01/21
Message-ID: <3062798163303133@naggum.no>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 211233323
references: <slrn5e5geh.dl.yunho@csl.snu.ac.kr> <5c0th8$iqd@nntp.hut.fi>
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organization: Naggum Software; +47 2295 0313; http://www.naggum.no
newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme


* Jussi Mantere
| When you install a Scheme (or any LISP) package on your computer,
| you install the _interpreter_, or evaluator.

this is factually wrong.

| (eval <op> <env>) as such is, afaik, a standard feature in scheme,
| defined in R4RS.

this is factually wrong.

| They are mature enough. Don't buy anything commercial.
| Use Emacs and whatever scheme implementation you find convenient.
| Guile, MIT Scheme... whatever.

this is disquieting.  the strongest effects of free Lisp implementations to
date have been to turn people away from Lisp due to low performance, high
memory usage, etc; to perpetrate the _myth_ that all Lisps are interpreted,
that the language is slow, etc; to make people believe that Lisps don't fit
in with the rest of the operating system, that you can't make executables;
etc ad nauseam.

commercial implementations have taken Lisps out of the experimental lab and
made them shippable and supportable as useful systems.  apparently, the
discipline needed to do this is not available for free, so it is safe to
assume it is hard, mostly uninspiring, work.  (note, however, that my
experience is with Common Lisp.  I don't know Scheme very well.)

#\Erik
-- 
1,3,7-trimethylxanthine -- a basic ingredient in quality software.