Re: Lisp

[Jean Louis]

There will be nice references from history of programming languages. If I am 
not mistaken LISP is the second programming language after FORTRAN, and many 
other programming languages have been derived from LISP.
Scheme, including Guile is derived from LISP, it is considered LISP dialect.

GNU Emacs has decades of development, its development started before many new 
programming languages that came to existence and became popular. Thus there are 
historical reasons for LISP. One need to review the history of LISP development 
and programming language developments to understand it all.

There are practical and programmatic reasons for LISP beside historical 
reasons. I am of opinion that programmatic reasons played the major role. 

Here is one reference for you:
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-why-lisp.html

Here is more reasons for Emacs Lisp:
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/eintr/Why.html

Myself, I like the extensibility of Emacs Lisp, it gives me environment to 
handle almost all my business needs. In my opinion, the years from 1980-2000 
were interesting years, people were more interested in programming and 
purchasing a computer brought many people into programming. Especially in 
earlier years, computers were delivered with books for programmnig languages. 
And I remember companies were designating one person to learn and do whatever 
software was necessary for the single company. I have seen those companies, 
visited them and visited programmers, even when I was a boy. They had output on 
the printer, there was no monitor for big computers. I have seen accountants 
sitting late night and studying the program and making new programs for 
invoices and other business  calculations. And I have worked with a teacher who 
programmed anything necessary for pupils to learn better. Programming was in. 
Almost everybody I knew at that time, including colleauges of my parents, 
including teachers, and boys and girls who went into comput club, was aware 
that anything we wanted, we could program ourselves. Games were harder to do, 
yet we programmed even games, it was more fun playing one's own game then 
commercial games. So I come from the period of time which taught me that 
anything I need can be programmed, so I do programming for me and my business 
myself.

Emacs Lisp offers me already the environment, like menues, it gives me key 
functions, it gives me foundation, so I can extend it as I wish, doing any 
possible business or private tasks, accounting entries into database are 
conducted through Emacs for multiple companies, projects and tasks are managed 
by Emacs, sending SMS and receiving SMS recently I do by Emacs, all notes, SMS, 
faxes, emails are recorded into database by using Emacs, and  I can extend it 
with few minutes or hours as I wish. As everything is related to writnig, Emacs 
Lisp becomes my best choice. All entries, all text is related to text editing, 
so that is very proper to have as foundation or environment that may be further 
extended and integrated with other life and business tasks.

For example, in Dired file manager or directory editor, I just press SUPER-M to 
mail the file or files to specific person, Emacs Lisp function asks me for name 
of person, I choose one email among others, and files are sent quickly, wthout 
launching separate software or email reader. Similar integration is within 
Android or Replicant operating systems. You can click on files and easier share 
them.

That is example, anything can be done and extending new functions to well 
prepared foundation helps me in life.


Am July 9, 2020 12:58:02 AM UTC schrieb sergio hernandez 
<sergio.hdzreyes@gmail.com>:
>Hi people, I have a concern of the use of a language derived of scheme
>how
>Lisp or Guile. Why GNU uses this languages for develop many of the
>software
>like mcron, emacs, freetalk, etc?  Thanks for your answer.