Bob, First, I share your admiration for John McCarthy (after all, who does not?). In that spirit, my understanding was that LISP was an homage, and as such should not be viewed in a negative light. You're of course right that we do stand on shoulders– many.
Eliot On 10/27/11 11:08 PM, Bob Hinden wrote: > John McCarthy died a few days ago. I won't try to summarize his > accomplishments myself but thought that the obituary in the NY Times was very > good: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/science/26mccarthy.html > > "John McCarthy, a computer scientist who helped design the foundation of > today’s Internet-based computing and who is widely credited with coining the > term for a frontier of research he helped pioneer, Artificial Intelligence, > or A.I., died on Monday at his home in Stanford, Calif. He was 84. > .... > In 1958, Dr. McCarthy moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, > where, with Marvin Minsky, he founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. > It was at M.I.T. that he began working on what he called List Processing > Language, or Lisp, a computer language that became the standard tool for > artificial intelligence research and design." > > With his death, I have a request. > > I request that the relevant authors and IETF working group rename what it > currently calls "LISP" to something else. To put it politely, the IETF > should be standing on the shoulders of the giants who have laid the > groundwork of the Internet, not stepping on their toes. > > Bob > > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > [email protected] > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
