lgm@cbnewsc.att.com (lawrence.g.mayka) (09/26/90)
In article <19900919155917.7.MOON@KENNETH-WILLIAMS.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>, Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM ("David A. Moon") writes: > certainly can't see the harm in that. Of course, a yet higher level > language than Lisp, which some of us might still yearn for, would > separate the issue of expressing the computation from the issue of > choosing the data representation, thus freeing the programmer from > thinking about all of these different data types all the time without > going back to nothing but linked lists. This is the prime motivation for object-oriented programming; and it requires not a new language, but rather: (1) Better optimization of Lisp's existing polymorphic operations (e.g., the sequence functions). (2) The progressive extension of CLOS' object-oriented programming capability to more and more of the preexisting Common Lisp functions and datatypes. That is, implementors should strive to progressively decrease the number of built-in classes (i.e., classes that cannot be inherited) and the number of non-generic functions (i.e., functions that cannot be specialized for a new class). Without sacrificing performance, of course! Lawrence G. Mayka AT&T Bell Laboratories lgm@iexist.att.com Standard disclaimer.