LISP n.
[from `LISt Processing language', but mythically from `Lots of
Irritating Superfluous Parentheses'] AI's mother tongue, a
language based on the ideas of (a) variable-length lists and
trees as fundamental data types, and (b) the interpretation of
code as data and vice-versa. Invented by John McCarthy at MIT in
the late 1950s, it is actually older than any other HLL still in use except FORTRAN. Accordingly, it
has undergone considerable adaptive radiation over the years;
modern variants are quite different in detail from the original
LISP 1.5. The dominant HLL among hackers until the early 1980s,
LISP now shares the throne with C. Its
partisans claim it is the only language that is truly beautiful.
See languages of
choice.
All LISP functions and programs are expressions that return
values; this, together with the high memory utilization of LISPs,
gave rise to Alan Perlis's famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar
Wilde quote) that "LISP programmers know the value of everything
and the cost of nothing".
One significant application for LISP has been as a proof by
example that most newer languages, such as COBOL and Ada, are
full of unnecessary crocks. When the
Right Thing has already been
done once, there is no justification for bogosity in newer languages.
Node:list-bomb, Next:lithium lick, Previous:LISP, Up:= L
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list-bomb v.
To mailbomb someone by forging
messages causing the victim to become a subscriber to many
mailing lists. This is a self-defeating tactic; it merely forces
mailing list servers to require confirmation by return message
for every subscription.