David Clark is like John Smith and no, I am not any famous person but I have been around the micro computer world for a very long time (1975).
My website is www.rccconsulting.com where you will find an essay on the data structure I mentioned here called SLIST and some documentation and high level design for the system/language I am currently developing called MAX.
Users do care more about response times (as you say) and instantaneous and 1/2 instantaneous are considered equal by end users. Most user developed code doesn't need optimization but the data structures that under pin that user code should be as performant as possible, just in case.
Designing a language like Lisp or a special purpose language/system like I am creating have design criteria that is much different from the application programmer that is just trying to make stuff work. I have completed at least 1,000 projects big and small as an application programmer, as well as all the system programming I have done so I think I have a good incite into both points of view.
>> use of lists; most applications don't use them
You may be correct but most programs manipulate variable length character strings whether that is formatting, creating HTML documents, creating JSON data etc. Most currently used programming languages don't do variable length strings either well or efficiently. I also don't like the fact that almost all useful data must be manipulated and stored in database systems that reside somewhere other than my computer. My new system was designed to help solve that problem and more.
My website is www.rccconsulting.com where you will find an essay on the data structure I mentioned here called SLIST and some documentation and high level design for the system/language I am currently developing called MAX.
Users do care more about response times (as you say) and instantaneous and 1/2 instantaneous are considered equal by end users. Most user developed code doesn't need optimization but the data structures that under pin that user code should be as performant as possible, just in case.
Designing a language like Lisp or a special purpose language/system like I am creating have design criteria that is much different from the application programmer that is just trying to make stuff work. I have completed at least 1,000 projects big and small as an application programmer, as well as all the system programming I have done so I think I have a good incite into both points of view.
>> use of lists; most applications don't use them
You may be correct but most programs manipulate variable length character strings whether that is formatting, creating HTML documents, creating JSON data etc. Most currently used programming languages don't do variable length strings either well or efficiently. I also don't like the fact that almost all useful data must be manipulated and stored in database systems that reside somewhere other than my computer. My new system was designed to help solve that problem and more.