Re: Lisp files that load cl-lib in problematical ways

[Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org>]

Bob Rogers wrote:

> Even before CL, Lisp systems tended to be memory-hungry.
> Common Lisp was designed as a large language, for a future
> where memory would be cheap. That future eventually came,
> but before it came the PC boom, when tiny systems with
> relatively tiny amounts of RAM ruled the roost. And Lisp was
> neglected even on more powerful workstations; some of you
> will rememeber the Sun Sparcstation Pmeg problem that caused
> page table thrashing if you tried to allocate more than
> 16MB. (This is an over- simplification for why Lisp
> popularity declined, of course.)

Before the PC: too memory-hungry
On the PCs: not enough RAM
On the workstations: neglected

> This complexity and the resulting complications, I believe,
> are what Richard was trying to avoid when he designed Emacs
> Lisp to be a simpler dialect of Lisp, and why he sees
> cl-lib.el as a trojan horse that is changing Emacs Lisp.

If so, it has certainly succeeded! There used to be 'labels',
'incf', and 'decf' in Elisp. Now, not only do they face
competition from `cl-labels', `cl-incf', and `cl-decf' - they
don't exist anymore.

-- 
underground experts united
https://dataswamp.org/~incal