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Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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“Everybody should have an obsession with Lisp-like language at least once in their life” @KevlinHenney

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/27

The tweet [WaybackSave/Archive] Jakub Kočí on X: “”Everybody should have an obsession with Lisp-like language at least once in their life” @KevlinHenney I’m glad that I had one with Clojure.” mentioned a great talk:

[Wayback/Archive] The Past, Present & Future of Programming Languages • Kevlin Henney • GOTO 2024 – YouTube

The quote brought instant memories to my early computing days that I had almost forgotten: the muMATH (the muMATH-80 version on Apple II) computer algebra system which was based on muLISP (the German muLISP page has more detailed information), a LISP dialect.

In retrospect, I was way too young to really grasp LISP which was way harder than just using the muMATH wrapper. But it was also my first encounter to reasoning systems, or what we now collectively would call AI systems as back in the 70s there was a strong LISP connection to artificial intelligence . Do not confuse muMath with MuMath-Code however, that is a different LLM beast: [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – youweihao-tal/MuMath-Code

So hopefully I will have a chance to revisit LISP with a LISP-like language one day, maybe even using the discontinued muMATH-83 on MS-DOS (also named “Microsoft LISP“), maybe even the (also discontinued) Derive 6.1 for Windows which is also based on muLISP, or even Clojure itself.

Derive (discontinued in 2007) via [Wayback/Archive] Derive 6.1 for Windows – free licensed download

The download is for the final version of Derive that Texas Instruments released but its functionality goes far beyond that of the TI-89, Voyage 200 (a person favourite of mine) or Nspire family of calculators. Much of this extended functionality is provided via the Utility File Library that was distributed with Derive over the years (much of it created by academia as Derive was the most popular CAS in academia for many years before TI got their grubby mitts on the IP).

The range of extended functionality covers combinatorics, linear algebra, tensor algebra, number theory, numerical analysis, complex analysis, probability theory, regression analysis, elliptic functions, ODE’s etc, etc.

The great thing about this library for owners of TI CAS calculators is that it can serve as the basis of bespoke extended functions on said calculator hardware, as the core language is the same.

Derive in comparison to Maple or Mathematica will be found wanting, but Derive 6.1 is a great addon to XCAS, and as ever with computer algebra systems, having an alternative to your main CAS is always useful as they each have their own strengths and weaknesses and what results in a cul-de-sac in one can lead to a solution in another.

The UX is definitely dated but once you start working with its core key bindings it’s comparable to Maple in terms of its speed in deriving solutions.

The included documentation is excellent but be sure to install the classic Windows help viewer (the Windows 10 help viewer won’t work) and you can only access the help via the Windows Start menu. The only other gotcha of note is that you’re best to install and run it in Windows XP (SP3) compatibility mode (via the right-click menu).

Open source Derive alternatives:

Some muMATH/muLISP links, many via [Wayback/Archive] MuLisp Docs | Page 1 | Vintage Computer Federation Forums / [Wayback/Archive] MuLisp Docs | Page 2 | Vintage Computer Federation Forums / [Wayback/Archive] MuLisp Docs | Page 3 | Vintage Computer Federation Forums (all pages having useful comments):

Related past blog posts:

Some of the many takeaways from the talk are funny:

Given the talks covers the various tenses on programming languages, it refers to various usage statistics most of which are aggregated at [Wayback/Archive] Programming Language Rankings by code_report. The top 5 and even top 10 of that list is not dynamic at all. They are kind of stable: despites there are subtle shifts over time, and the shifts become smaller.

--jeroen

[Wayback/Archive] The Past, Present & Future of Programming Languages • Kevlin Henney • GOTO 2024 – YouTube

[Wayback/Archive] Keynote: Excel meets Lambda – Andy Gordon, Simon Peyton Jones | Lambda Days 2021 – YouTube

[Wayback/Archive] Excel Meets Lambda – Prof Simon Peyton Jones & Prof. Andy Gordon – The Archimedeans × UCCPS – YouTube

This entry was posted on 2025/08/27 at 18:00 and is filed under AI and ML; Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Development, History, LISP, LLM, Power User, Retrocomputing, Software Development. Tagged: . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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