[net.lang] LISP data structures

barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin) (06/27/84)

In article <7556@rochester.UUCP> stuart@rochester.UUCP writes:
>I am not generally a fan of "AI" languages.  No sneer intended, but I
>think most of them either have no sophistication about data structures
>(LISP)....
>				Stu Friedberg

I am getting sick and tired of people maligning LISP because it has no
decent data structuring capabilities.  REAL LISP PROGRAMMERS DON'T USES
CONSES!  At least, not directly.  LISP provides several facilities which
implement REAL data structuring, the most important being DEFSTRUCT,
which provides very powerful structure defining capabilities.  Several
dialects of Maclisp (Zetalisp and NIL are the ones I know of) provide
flavors, which are very powerful data- and procedure-abstraction
mechanisms (they are an extension of Smalltalk classes, although I have
heard a rumor that Smalltalk classes were later given some flavor
features).
-- 
			Barry Margolin
			ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics
			UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar