[HN Gopher] Experience with an Uncommon Lisp (1986) [pdf]
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       Experience with an Uncommon Lisp (1986) [pdf]
        
       Author : mepian
       Score  : 81 points
       Date   : 2024-03-18 01:26 UTC (21 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (dl.acm.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (dl.acm.org)
        
       | andsoitis wrote:
       | _When our development process began, there was ferment in the
       | Lisp community. One of the more important events relat- ing to
       | the design of the new IBM Research Lisp system was the
       | publication of the Bobrow and Wegbreit paper [Bobrow and Wegbreit
       | 1973] proposing a new control structure, the spaghetti stack. We
       | immediately seized on the elegance and flexibilityof this idea._
       | 
       |  _A key component of this model of computation was the con- cept
       | of the saved state, a data object which captured both the set of
       | current variable bindings (the environment) and the current call
       | chain and point of execution (the control). We have used saved
       | states (state descriptors) extensively, both as a form of
       | continuation and as a component of closures._
        
         | antonvs wrote:
         | > there was ferment in the Lisp community.
         | 
         | This is the same as saying "the Lisp community existed."
        
           | lisper wrote:
           | No, it is saying that the community was coming up with a lot
           | of remarkably good ideas.
        
             | jksmith wrote:
             | An elegant weapon for a more civilized age without the C
             | language legacy.
        
               | fargle wrote:
               | that's like saying the 18th century was more "civilized"
               | because we settled squabbles with dueling pistols. people
               | are still people and we are just about as civilized today
               | as we ever were. which isn't saying much.
               | 
               | the analogy holds for programming languages as well as it
               | does for anything else involving people.
        
               | jksmith wrote:
               | Just a fanciful quote with some license. But one might
               | argue the defn of civilization as applied to general
               | programming with so much of it being commodity
               | programming these days. Additionally, I believe an
               | argument could be made that the long-term tyranny of the
               | C bubble has actually retarded the advancement of the
               | art.
        
               | MonkeyClub wrote:
               | I think GP missed the reference, https://xkcd.com/297
        
         | digdugdirk wrote:
         | That sounds really interesting, in a way I cannot begin to
         | comprehend.
         | 
         | Can someone please translate into more common vernacular?
        
           | JimmyRuska wrote:
           | Sounds like an implementation for how to managing scopes
           | using stack frames with some state machine like elements to
           | it
        
           | volemo wrote:
           | > Can someone please translate into more common vernacular?
           | 
           | If I were to read that, it'd be common lisp. :D
        
           | rurban wrote:
           | setjmp/longjmp if the states were not on the stack. (of
           | course nobody would be so crazy to actually use longjmp, just
           | properly save the stack state: env and control)
           | 
           | if jumping back into inner states (i.e. out of control
           | stacks), the stack frame needs to be preserved also. as in
           | call/cc later.
        
         | ustad wrote:
         | Could not find the actual paper but the figures look cool:
         | https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-model-and-stack-impl...
        
           | mainland wrote:
           | Here is a copy of what looks to be the original report:
           | <https://wellcomecollection.org/works/seuuc6a5>
           | 
           | Here is a link to the version published with the ACM:
           | <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/362375.362379>
        
         | _delirium wrote:
         | Is that kind of like a reified version of Scheme's call/cc?
        
       | pmcjones wrote:
       | More on YKTLISP (and its predecessor) here:
       | 
       | https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/ibm_lisp_...
        
         | lispm wrote:
         | Looks like this was an application: YES/MVS
         | https://cdn.aaai.org/AAAI/1984/AAAI84-032.pdf
         | 
         | About Lispedit: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1006142.1006164
        
           | pmcjones wrote:
           | Thanks; I added citations for both of those.
        
             | lispm wrote:
             | "https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1006147.1006176" "LEVEL
             | LANGUAGE DEBUGGING WITH A COMPILER" -> about LispEdit
        
               | pmcjones wrote:
               | Thanks again; added that (and fixed up previous edit fat-
               | fingering).
        
       | pjmlp wrote:
       | Love the technical stuff on the paper related to compiler
       | implementation, inline Assembly and debugging capabilities.
        
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