The Fascinating Dick Gabriel on Lisp

Dick Gabriel truly sounds both an intelligent and fascinating computer scientist. He is quite articulate in developing and expressing ideas. He is quite funny too! For the entirety of this podcast, I just wanted to listen more and more about his thoughts and knowledge. From what I listened of him in this podcast, he might as well become an inspiration for me!

As for Lisp itself, I did know some information about this language; specially, what it seemed back then, its cult-like following. Now I understand more about it, and with that its following userbase. What I take from it is that this language, in a way, revolutionized what we think of a computer language. Despite its tragic fall from grace due to hype mixed with the fastness and urgencies of business itself, the legacy of Lisp is a living proof of what is achievable when thinking in different levels and structures of thought. As an opinion, language as a tool is a model. However, the power of models is not in its tyrannical hold on truth, but in its aid in approximating the symmetries of reality through a medium of thinking, and with that an easiness on articulating true understanding. Hence, there is no primordial true language, but a diversity, and the legacy of Lisp is that other ways of thinking are feasible, practical, and desirable.

Dick Gabriel is a fascinating character. He deeply loves computer science, but because of its resemblance with art. I also believe our field is an art form, and many others have also. But to think and to act are quite different things. As of now, he is the first one I have heard of who takes seriously the potentiality of applying creative and artful processes for software design. I, as someone who has felt strongly conflicted on whether to formalize my understanding or let models and language shape it, as inaccurate or biased they may be, his voice is refreshing, and for sure I will take his advice: to first inform myself from chaos, and perhaps use Lisp for my own language research; I am quite interested in that.

Voelter, M. (Host). (2008, January 22). Dick Gabriel on Lisp (No. 84). [Audio podcast episode]. In Software Engineering Radio, IEEE Software. http://www.se-radio.net/2008/01/episode-84-dick-gabriel-on-lisp/