Ola Bini wrote:
> Kristof Bastiaensen wrote:
>> On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 01:51:08 +0900, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
>>
>> Lisp is definitely not a core language.  The standard is about 1100 
>> pages,
>> so it contains most of of the stuff you would expect, string handling,
>>
>
> You seem to confuse the language Common Lisp with the mathematical 
> concept Lisp. Lisp is seven operators and a one-page denotional 
> semantic definition. That's about as small and core as it gets.
Yes ... I wish I could remember who made that distinction and when. In 
any event, I'm guessing it was in the days of Lisp 1.5, which is 
certainly a core language. IIRC Lisp 1.5 had some primitive string 
handling, and some implementations even did floating point. But this was 
well before Common Lisp 1, Common Lisp 2 or the ANS standard.

As I noted in an earlier post, I'm now off looking for the Ruby "core 
language". :)