Why don't people like lisp?

[Thomas A. Russ]

"Rainer Deyke" <rainerd at eldwood.com> writes:
> 
> Joe Marshall wrote:
> >   2.  But the computer shouldn't wait until it can prove you are done
> >       to close the file.
> 
> Wrong.  The computer can prove that I am done with the file the moment my
> last reference to the file is gone.  I demand nothing more (or less).

But in practice, the computer will only prove you are done with the file
the next time it decides to check.  This is different from "the moment
my last reference...is gone" because for very good preformance reasons,
the computer doesn't check at each unbinding.  (And no, reference counts
aren't a good idea either.)

Common Lisp as currently formulated does not have finalizers, although
there have been over the years proposals to add them.  There are still
some unresolved issues regarding how to limit what such finalizers can
do.  In any case, that will also not give immediate results.

-- 
Thomas A. Russ,  USC/Information Sciences Institute