Lisp: Difference between revisions

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imported>Johan Förberg
imported>Johan Förberg
(→‎Hello World: Expanded hello world section and simplified the program. Hello world is supposed to be the simplest possible example; now it is simpler.)
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At [[John McCarthy|McCarthy]]'s request, the word Lisp now designates the family of languages that has resulted from his original design, and no longer any specific language, dialect, or implementation.  For this reason, the [[American National Standards Institute]] (ANSI) relating to Lisp, X3.226/1994, is a standard for the language [[Common Lisp]], in order that other members of the Lisp language family not be affected.  Likewise, the [[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]] standard, ISO/IEC 13816:1997(E), defines a language named [[ISLISP]].
At [[John McCarthy|McCarthy]]'s request, the word Lisp now designates the family of languages that has resulted from his original design, and no longer any specific language, dialect, or implementation.  For this reason, the [[American National Standards Institute]] (ANSI) relating to Lisp, X3.226/1994, is a standard for the language [[Common Lisp]], in order that other members of the Lisp language family not be affected.  Likewise, the [[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]] standard, ISO/IEC 13816:1997(E), defines a language named [[ISLISP]].


== Hello World ==
=== Hello World ===


;;; This is an example of a Common Lisp program
The [[Hello World]] program is traditionally the first program an aspiring programmer writes when learning a new language. Its function is to write some short text to some output device (often a computer screen). It turns out that Hello World is a rather bad way to introduce someone to the LISP programming language, since it shows almost none of the features which make LISP important. Computer custom dictates that we write it down, however:
;;; This defines a function, but does not call it.
 
  ;;; The call from another Lisp program would be: (hello-world)
  ; This is one of the simplest possible LISP programs.
   
  ; It prints the words "Hello, World!" to standard output.
(in-package "CL-USER")
   
   
  (defun hello-world ()
  (print "Hello, World!")
  (write-line "Hello, world!"))


== Language properties ==
== Language properties ==

Revision as of 08:24, 9 February 2011

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This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

This article is about the programming language. For the speech disorder, see Lisp (impediment).

Lisp, created by John McCarthy in 1958, is one of the oldest extant, high-level computer programming languages, dating from the same era as Fortran and COBOL. Lisp takes its name from "List Processing", since one of its prominently featured data structures is the linked list. Lisp is still used, and sometimes taught, in universities, and has had enormous influence on the field of computer programming. Lisp derives some of its ideas from Alonzo Church's lambda calculus, although the language is not a literal implementation of that formalism. Features in the spirit of the lambda calculus are probably easiest to see in Scheme.

At McCarthy's request, the word Lisp now designates the family of languages that has resulted from his original design, and no longer any specific language, dialect, or implementation. For this reason, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) relating to Lisp, X3.226/1994, is a standard for the language Common Lisp, in order that other members of the Lisp language family not be affected. Likewise, the ISO standard, ISO/IEC 13816:1997(E), defines a language named ISLISP.

Hello World

The Hello World program is traditionally the first program an aspiring programmer writes when learning a new language. Its function is to write some short text to some output device (often a computer screen). It turns out that Hello World is a rather bad way to introduce someone to the LISP programming language, since it shows almost none of the features which make LISP important. Computer custom dictates that we write it down, however: 

; This is one of the simplest possible LISP programs. 
; It prints the words "Hello, World!" to standard output.

(print "Hello, World!")

Language properties

The following list represents a series of powerful software language concepts in which Lisp was really the pioneer.

Others

Popular Myths About Lisp

Lisp is sometimes mischaracterized as an "interpreted" language. In fact, Lisp compilers have been available for decades. Some very important and influential research in compiler design has been done in Lisp. For example, the notion of continuation-passing style was invented for Scheme.

Lisp is sometimes mischaracterized as a language that only has lists for container types. In fact, for several decades, all major Lisps have had a rich variety of container types, such as arrays, strings, hash tables, and user-defined class instances.

Members of the Lisp Language Family

There have been many members of the Lisp language family. Some of the more prominent Lisps are:

Lisps in more recent use are:


Languages which were inspired by Lisp:

Significant Applications

Some of the many historically important applications that have been created in Lisp:

  • ELIZA (emulator/parody of human therapist)
  • MACSYMA (symbolic algebra)
  • SHRDLU (natural language understanding)
  • Lisp Machine (Lisp-based hardware and operating systems)

External Links

References

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