If I have to struggle to make it run Lisp programs, then it is not a Lisp.
If Lisp is only a vague philosophy, then it is practically useless.
I tend to prefer to think in terms of code and working systems. Ultimately Lisp is for writing and using software which can be shared, passed around and reused.
I prefer to get away from the abstract, to a level, where we talk about software written in Lisp, not about principles and no shared software. For me Lisp is not a category of programming languages, which share some abstract principles in various incompatible forms. For me Lisp is a family of programming languages who can share or evolve code. Sure we have learned a bit and Lisp today does not look exactly like Lisp in 1960, but we were not throwing away our Lisp (code and implementations), we were refining and improving it - rewriting were necessary.
Name:
Anonymous2015-10-15 3:03
There are several Lisp programs which have been moved through the decades. Even more complex ones than Maxima. Axiom is an example. We have seen Common Lisp versions of Reduce, which was written in Standard Lisp and then in Portable Standard Lisp. Many programs written in Maclisp, Franz Lisp or Zetalisp have been ported to Common Lisp. Even software from Interlisp ended up in Common Lisp. Object systems had been written for several Lisp dialects. The LOOP macro had one source file for several years for Maclisp, Zetalisp, NIL, and Common Lisp. Spice Lisp was coming from Maclisp similarity and evolved into Common Lisp ... CMUCL...
With very little support, we can even run Lisp 1.5 code from McCarty's publications in Common Lisp.
Name:
Anonymous2015-10-16 14:43
A nice thing about porting lisp code from one implementation from another is some implementation supported language constructs can be created with macros, or at least provide wrapper syntax which translates specific bodies of code from one syntax to another.