Interesting question... Reading the history on the SwiftForth website =
shows that Chuck began at MIT in 1958, around the same time as the =
development of Lisp by John McCarthy.=20

But I think that any blending of the two ideas was more likely =
accidental than overt. McCarthy wrote his first paper musing about a =
hypothetical language made of of S-expressions. He used that device to =
reason about computer programs from a theoretical standpoint. It wasn't =
until one of his graduate students actually programmed the rudimentary =
interpreter that Lisp became a real object. McCarthy himself said he =
never originally intended it to be a real item.

http://www.forth.com/resources/evolution/evolve_0.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/rootsoflisp.html
http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/paulgraham/jmc.ps

But good ideas often occur to multiple people around the same time. And =
both Chuck and John were very receptive at the time, so it indicates =
something, I think about the sheer pain of programming early computers.

- DM

On Feb 3, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Roger Levy wrote:

> Wasn't Forth injected with some ideas from Lisp?
> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 2:36 PM, Bob Nash <bob.nash1_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>=20
>> Interesting thread, but what does this have to do with Swift Forth?
>> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 10:08 AM, David McClain <
>> dbm_at_refined-audiometrics.com
>>> wrote:
>>=20
>>> OOH! Congratulations !!=3D20
>>>=20
>>> Yes, I am a Lisp expert as well as a former Forth expert. What would =
you
>> =3D
>>> like to know? (and we might get booted out of there, so we ought to =
go =3D
>>> offline...)
>>>=20
>>> But as for overall environment they share a lot in common. Both are =
=3D
>>> highly interactive, incremental development and test, and =
extensible. A =3D
>>> decent editor will help you manage all the parentheses... a friend =
used =3D
>>> to call Lisp source "oatmeal with angry toenails"
>>>=20
>>> - DM
>>>=20
>>> On Feb 3, 2010, at 10:08 AM, Robert Dickow wrote:
>>>=20
>>>> I've started playing with Lisp. I had to do some DNA protein =
matching =3D
>>> and
>>>> analysis routines for a friend in a biomedical informatics program. =
=3D
>>> Lisp
>>>> seems potentially as much fun as Forth, if I ever get to figure out =
=3D
>>> how to
>>>> manage all the parentheses all over the page. ;-) Some sources make
>>>> comparisons between Lisp and Forth, but I think they're really =3D
>>> different at
>>>> heart.=3D20
>>>> =3D20
>>>> Is anyone in this group familiar enough with working in Lisp and =
Forth
>> =3D
>>> to
>>>> make some comments along these lines?
>>>> =3D20
>>>> Bob Dickow
>>>> =3D20
>>>> =3D20
>>>> =
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>>>> =3D20
>>>> =3D20
>>>=20
>>> Dr. David McClain
>>> dbm_at_refined-audiometrics.com
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>>=20
>>> =
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>>>=20
>>>=20
>>=20
>>=20
>> =
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>>=20
>>=20
>=20
>=20
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>=20
>=20

Dr. David McClain
dbm_at_refined-audiometrics.com

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Received on Wed Feb 03 2010 - 12:02:46 PST