commit ca8c689f7baf43b710ffe45e96c65ab813658add
parent 5eca762275aa8a83cbc46cb0d924b1c069aafa9c
Author: neau <neau@web>
Date: Wed Nov 9 18:54:18 +0100
Added Alan Kay's thoughts on lisp
Diffstat:1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/bedrock_platform.mdwn b/bedrock_platform.mdwn
@@ -32,6 +32,14 @@ For virtual bedrock hardware, the main criterion is that the specification is si
Even though optimal resource use is not a major point in bedrock platforms, having that as well would be ideal. Not only should it be possible to make minimal-overhead emulators, but to read, [[analyze|static code analysis]], [[decompile|decompilation]] and recompile the code in order to use it on arbitrary future computers. Writers of bedrock-platform software may want to make sure that it will be easy enough to e.g. separate code from data even when analyzing binaries.
+### The Maxwell's Equations of Software
+
+Alan Kay has famously described Lisp as the “Maxwell’s equations of software”. He describes the revelation he experienced when, as a graduate student, he was studying the LISP 1.5 Programmer’s Manual and realized that “the half page of code on the bottom of page 13 was Lisp in _itself_.
+
+> Yes, that was the big revelation to me when I was in graduate school—when I finally understood that the half page of code on the bottom of page 13 of the Lisp 1.5 manual was Lisp in itself. These were “Maxwell’s Equations of Software!” This is the whole world of programming in a few lines that I can put my hand over.
+
+> I realized that anytime I want to know what I’m doing, I can just write down the kernel of this thing in a half page and it’s not going to lose any power. In fact, it’s going to gain power by being able to reenter itself much more readily than most systems done the other way can possibly do.
+
See also:
* [You have made your bedrock, now lie in it.](http://www.loper-os.org/?p=55)
