Joy, Lambdas, Combinators, Procedures

[btanksley@hifn.com]

> From: Massimo Dentico [mailto:m.dentico@teseo.it]

> btanksley@hifn.com wrote:
> > [...]
> > The interesting thing about APL is that it, like LISP, is 
> > an accidental
> > pioneer; the inventor of APL didn't really intend for it to explore
> > combinators any more than the inventor of LISP intended it 
> > to explore lambda-calculus.

> Truly interesting for historical reasons. Can you give me
> a reference for this? An MIT memo of late 50's/early 60's
> I suppose.

>From your mention of 'MIT' I assume you're talking about LISP rather than
APL.  There's some good historical info (well-footnoted) at
http://faui80.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/html/lisp/histlit1.html which
emphasises this point; McCarthy has also gone on record saying almost
exactly that, although I've forgotten where.

> Massimo Dentico

-Billy