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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
biography

John R.Allen  is the  founder of  "The  LISP Company"  and the  author  of
"Anatomy of LISP".  He was guest editor of the August 1979 issue of  BYTE,
organizer of the 1980 LISP Conference, and contributor to this year's West
Coast Computer Faire LISP/object-oriented session.

He also lectures at  Santa Clara University,  developing courses on  LISP,
functional programming, and Artificial Intelligence, as well as initiating
a  program  to  enhance  the  technical  and  cultural  understanding   of
computing at that University.

Mr. Allen  has  also taught  at  San Jose  State,  and the  University  of
California campuses at Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles.
1 mon
   morn
  8     data structures
  9
  10    applicative lisp
  11
   afternoon
  1    representation and abstraction
  2
  3    how to run on machine
  4
   evening
  7    simple programs
  8
2 tue
   morn
  8    editing and debugging
  9
  10	imperative features
  11
   afternoon
  1	macros
  2
  3	list modifiers
  4
   evening
  6	larger problems
  7
  8
3 wed
   morn
  8	property-lists
  9
  10 	the evaluator
  11
   afternoon
  1	large examples and representation
  2
  3	
  4
   evening
  7	more programming
  8
4 thur
   morn
  8	functionals
  9
  10
  11
   afternoon
  1	object-oriented/msg pasing
  2
  3
  4
   evening
  7	hack, hack
  8
5 fri
   morn
  8	implementation considerations
  9
  10
  11
   afternoon
  1	applications and examples
  2
  3
  4
   evening
  6
  7
  8
title:  LISP

LISP has been the major language of the Artificial Intelligence  community
for over twenty years. Recently, many of these results have begun to  find
commercial applications.  These include:

    ⊗ medical diagnosis,  
    ⊗ natural  language  understanding,  
    ⊗ integrated  circuit design, 
    ⊗ genetic  engeneering,  
    ⊗ geological  analysis. 

Furthermore, LISP has been found  valuable for the development and  design
of complex software, like:

    ⊗ operating systems,  
    ⊗ compilers, 
    ⊗ text  editors,
    ⊗ algebraic manipulation systems.

Finally, as  a descriptive  notation, LISP  expedites the  discussion  and
understanding of topics like:

    ⊗ 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;

This blend of theoretical elegance and practical pragmatics that  underlie
the power of LISP will be presented in a way that leaves the student  with
a solid grasp  of both  of these  facets so  that they  can make  informed
judgements about  the  language and  its  applicability to  their  problem
domain.

Specifically, the participants will obtain:
 
    ⊗ a thorough understanding of the language and its programming style.
    ⊗ a through grounding in the techniques of representation and
	abstraction in Artificial Intelligence programming.
    ⊗ a hands-on familarity with interactive LISP tools.



For whom:
The  course  is  designed  for   those  expecting  to  do  advanced   LISP
applications.  Prior experience with LISP is not required, but  experience
in handling complex programming tasks may prove benificial.

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