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C00002 00002	a proposal to teach a LISP course at the 1981 santa cruz summer institute.
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a proposal to teach a LISP course at the 1981 santa cruz summer institute.

there is a  rather remarkable  increase in  interest in  lisp and  related
ideas (object-oriented programming and  architecture, for example).   This
has occurred  following  a  general  increase in  AI  related  ideas;  for
example, TI and Schlumberger have made substanitial committments to AI. As
a result, there  is growing demand  for LISP-and AI  related knowledge  in
segments of business and the scientific communiity. It occurs to me that a
high-quality LISP course, complete with programming lab, could attract  an
appreciable audience at the santa cruz institute.

By "quality"  lisp course,  i mean  something much  more substantial  that
teaching how to hack CARs  and CDRs; LISP is a  rather sharp tool, and  to
use that instrument  elegantly requires  care.  i would  propose that  the
course material  stress  the interrelationships  between  abstraction  and
representation and the lab deal with realizations of the  representations.
this lab facility would be based on "personal lisp machines" --most likely
a reasonable  number of  tlc-lisp  based machines;  tlc-lisp is  a  strong
subset of  MIT's lisp  machine lisp,  and therefore  experience with  this
system would immediately map to  commercia;lly available hardware (LMI  or
Symbolic machines);  this machines  are currently  z-80 based  s-100,  cpm
computers that use a  commercially available memory-mapped display  system
to support  a  modest  smalltalk window  system  (80x40  characters,  with
arbitrary  windows).   these  machines   are  expected  to  have   on-line
documentation available through a small local net.

much of the preparation  has been done --for  the hardware, software,  and
course material.

* tlc-lisp  exits. it  is being  marketed by  cromemco and  myself. it  is
popular at mit, the home of LMI and symbolics.

* the basic hardware configuration is planned fo a version of this  course
to be given  this spring at  santa clara, and  hopefully to be  used at  a
tutorial special  lisp session  at  the west  coast computer  faire.   see
IPL[1,jra] for a short description of the hardware for SCU.


* a first pass  on the course  material exists on the  basis of a  current
graduate class on  functional programming  at santa clara,  and more  will
exist from the AI course i teach there next term. See SCHED[1,jra] for  an
outline of the  SCU functional programming  course, and COURSE[1,jra]  for
the beginnings of a course description for the spring SCU version.

* the  major  component  to  be  developed is  the  lab  material  and  an
integration of  that  material with  the  lecture material;  that  is  the
subject of the spring undergraduate course, and will become a new lisp-ish
book. See BK[1,jra] for an outdated outline of the book and lab material.


I will prepare a tentative course description, fitting the format of  your
brochure; hopefully to have  a draft by wednesday.   (it would perhaps  be
useful to know  what the  formats of  the other  courses are  so that  the
material would interface  well with  other offerinfs)  i will  be glad  to
answer any questions you might  have about this proposal. Considering  the
interest in lisp and the lack of  general knowledge about it, I feel  that
(a) someone/somewhere is going to offer a lisp-like course quite soon, and
(b) there isn't anyone who  can to it better than  I can, and there  isn't
any place better to do it than the Institute.

john

ps.    you    migh    also    find    EDUCAT[1,jra]    interesting     --a
notational/meta-computational tract aimed  at high  scholl math  teachers,
for you see, i'd like  to see lisp-ish things in  high school in place  of
the basic-crap that currently exists. the paper is tastefully titled  "The
Bankruptcy of Basic".
title:  LISP

LISP has  been the  major  language of  the Artificial  Intelligence  (AI)
community for over twenty years. Recently, LISP applications in AI such as
medical diagnosis,  natural  language  understanding,  integrated  circuit
design, genetic  engeneering,  and  geological  analysis,  have  attracted
commercial interest.

LISP is  also finding  increased applications  in the  general problem  of
designing complex software;  operating systems,  compilers, text  editors,
and algebraic manipulation system are commercially available as LISP-based
products.

As a  descriptive  notation, LISP  also  excells; its  simple  syntax  and
concise semantics  expedite the  discussion  and understanding  of  modern
computing phenomena; for example,  LISP is a  good introductory model  for
developing:

	an abstract data structure view of programming;

	an object-oriented view of computing as supported by Smalltalk;

	a functional programming style as advocated by Backus;

Given the power of the language and its relative obscurity in the  general
computing community,  it  is  important  that a  LISP  course  present  an
integrated and principled view of the language; in this way,  businessmen,
managers, and prospective  LISP users can  make informed judgements  about
the language and its applicability to their problem domain. This course is
designed with these clients in mind:

	we will examine the properties  of the  language that account  for  
	 its powerful role in AI

	we will discuss real-world applications of LISP
	
	we will offer the participants the opportunity to use LISP in  
	 interactive surroundings.

	we will investigate relationships between LISP and other languages.

LISP is a bemusing blend of theoretical elegance and practical pragmatics;
this course will give you a solid grasp of both of these facets of LISP.

Course materials:  class notes,  Artificial Intelligence Programming,  and
Anatomy of LISP.