In this phone interview that took place in front of an audience at OOPSLA 2008, Guy Steele spins a yarn with John McCarthy, the father of Lisp, attempting to find out some details surrounding the language inception in the 50’ and its later evolution.
Watch: Guy Steele Interviews John McCarthy, Father of Lisp (56 min.)
Steele tries to bring back McCarthy’s memories from 1956-1958 when he started thinking about “an algebraic list processing language for artificial intelligence work on the IBM 704 computer”. McCarthy does not forget to mention those who were involved in those early days, either by providing good ideas to him or by working on the Lisp project itself: John Backus, Herbert Gelernter, Carl Gerberich, Steve Russell, Mike Levin and others.
This interview is interesting because it shows some of the Lisp creator’s feelings about the language conception and evolution. For example, McCarthy does not like some “Englishy” syntax that was added later like “loop”.
McCarthy still wishes he succeeded with expressing common sense with mathematical expressions. That’s what he wanted to do back then, and that’s what he challenges today’s students with.
The interview is full of impressions and names from a thrilling age of programming, when many believed Artificial Intelligence was easy, and presents some of the influences languages like FORTRAN, ALGOL, IPL, PL 1 had on Lisp.
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Community comments
Typos in the transcript
by Paul McJones,
Re: Typos in the transcript
by Mark Wutka,
Re: Typos in the transcript
by Mark Wutka,
Re: Typos in the transcript
by Luciano Ramalho,
Thanks for posting the interview
by peter lin,
Typo
by Werner Schuster,
Typos fixed
by Abel Avram,
Re: Typos fixed
by Thierry Pirot,
Re: Typos fixed
by Erik Rantapaa,
Typos in the transcript
by Paul McJones,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
Noland Simon => Newell & Simon
girdle numbers => Gödel numbers
sum ends => summands
Herbert Stan => Herbert Stoyan
Kozak => [Alan] Kotok
"Amin!" => "Amen!"
Lennart => Lenat
Ken Pitman => Kent Pitman
John Al => JonL [John Lyle]
Thanks for posting the interview
by peter lin,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
that was a fun interview. thanks!
Re: Typos in the transcript
by Mark Wutka,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
Very enjoyable interview!
These are the typos that I thought either skipped information or misconveyed it:
variable lockup => variable lookup
Kotok and ... => Kotok and [Elwyn] Berlekamp
logical connectiveness => logical connectives
the idea had, in my opinion => But IPL had, in my opinion
you are currently convinced that while => you [were?] currently convinced for a while that
IPL had a boss => APL had a boss (If we take Fortran or IPL, each of them had a boss - APL had a boss)
trying to disclaim that boss => trying to disclaim that bossness
garbage collection was needed anyway => garbage collection was neater anyway
and a collected group => an eclectic group
"did he get into Lisp" => "did it get into Lisp"
that I did understand all of until => that I didn't understand at all until
differentiating in the formula and so forth => ... a formula and so forth. So I thought they were gonna hit a wall.
Re: Typos in the transcript
by Mark Wutka,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
Just noticed one other..
Lisp and Prologue => Lisp and Prolog
Re: Typos in the transcript
by Luciano Ramalho,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
Touring complete => Turing complete
Typo
by Werner Schuster,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
Allen Kane -> Alan Kay (he was supposed to do the interview).
Typos fixed
by Abel Avram,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
Thanks for noticing the typos. I believe they all have been fixed.
Re: Typos fixed
by Thierry Pirot,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
Lisp structure -> list structure
(in every place where this occurs)
Fortran-Lisp -> Fortran list
The idea of ... as a function -> the idea of cons as a function
consoles -> cons cells
Heilsberg -> Hejlsberg
Lisp programs or Lisp data -> the fact that Lisp programs are Lisp data, I think
Close related to the idea of a Lisp program and Lisp data is that it enables you to encode, apply and eval
-> Closely related to the idea that a Lisp program be Lisp data is that it enables you to encode APPLY and EVAL
The idea of eval is -> The idea of EVAL as
High order -> Higher order
Re: Typos fixed
by Erik Rantapaa,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
another one:
"the math labs, the maximums" -> "the MATHLABs, the Macsymas"
c.f. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATHLAB and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macsyma