Lisp as the Maxwell’s equations of software – DDI

A take on Lisp as the computational version of fundamental equations in physics. The claim is that learning Lisp is a foundational skill, and this page goes on to develop a “TiddlyLisp” interpreter in Python. As you’d expect this isn’t an espcially practical Lisp: but it’s remarkably functional, and I suspect will demystify Lisp for programmers familiar with interpreters for other languages.

See also a conversation with Alan Kay where he uses the “Maxwell’s equations”:

That was the big revelation to me when I was in graduate school – when I finally understood that the half page of code on the bottom of page 13 of the Lisp 1.5 manual was Lisp in itself. These were “Maxwell’s Equations of Software!” This is the whole world of programming in a few lines that I can put my hand over.

And in the second half of this article, the Lisp interpreter in Python is translated into a Lisp interpreter in Lisp, which is a very concrete way of showing how metacircularity can work in McCarthy’s original style.