If lisp never existed, what language do you think SICP would've used?
If Lisp did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it.
Something more like Smalltalk. Then again, Smalltalk only exists because Alan Kay saw what was already being done with Lisp, so Smalltalk as we know it wouldn't exist either.
Miranda was another similar lang used in unis at the time
>>4
Miranda probably wasn't old enough. PAL was, but both of them descend from ISWIM, which was a response to Lisp.
It's extraordinarily difficult to find languages that were not influenced by Lisp in any way, especially indirectly.
Information Processing Language, maybe?
Assembly language.
I agree with >>2. Lisp in the form of Scheme is the natural conclusion of SICP.
fortran
literally
Probably Smalltalk or Prolog?
Probably Prolog because it is a homoiconic language. Homoiconicity might be necessary for writing the metacircular evaluators of chapter 4 (Metalinguistic Abstraction).
If Lisp never existed, there would be no Smalltalk or Prolog either.
I'm wondering if SICP would even exist, >>1-san premise is that it would.
>>11 Has done some foot work here, whatever language used must be a good fit for demonstrating the concepts inside SICP.
>>12 Brings up a point listed many times in this thread that keeps getting ignored, not refuted.
If lisp didn't exit, someone owuld invent it.
Russians had their own Lisp with <> instead of ()
ALGOL!?
Without Lisp, we would be nothing.
>>17
thanks god vary cool but you used perl for 99% of everything
>>18
It's the 1% that counts
>>19
the chosen i presume
combinatory logic? knuths' assembly?
I think lisp was used because of how directly shows the concept of a state machine which is one of the pillars of modern computing, also makes understanding nesting easy and the extensibility/meta programming aspect
any language that can pull that in a simple to visualize manner fits the bill imho, I could be wrong
>>21
I think it can be summed up in that very few languages can be described as homoiconic, and even fewer of those are truly so in the sense that Lisp is. It's not enough that programs be manipulable as data, but for it to be possible for the program to encode it's own understanding of itself in a simple manner, syntax be damned. Given how far this plays into the whole metaprogramming aspect, I would have to agree with what >>2,14 had to say in that any hypothetical language that shares enough qualities with Lisp in that it achieves these properties is essentially Lisp.