David Betz

David Betz, recorded in the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing as David Micheal Betz, is the programmer who implemented XLISP, an experimental programming language that combines a subset of Common Lisp with an object-oriented extension capability, with Class and Object types. He built it at Apple to allow experimentation with object-oriented programming on small computers, and its C source code was later ported to Unix, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari and MS-DOS. The Programming Language Database also names him as the creator of AutoLISP in 1986, the Lisp dialect built for AutoCAD, whose early development took place at Autodesk and at Basis Software. The sources read record little else about him, so this entry rests on those two Lisp languages and makes no claim about his later career.