Re: Interesting developments since "Beating the averages"?

Tin Gherdanarra wrote:
joswig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Lisp does not need a 'benevolent dictator'. You may need one. 

This is a catchy sound-bite on my expense, but it misses
the point.

But then you can always join the Python community. 

You sound like a German redneck before 1989 telling
student protesters and "commies" to emigrate to the
GDR if they don't like it here. The python community
is where I'm from. Lisp has its virtues over python,
but there is no such thing as a "batteries included" for
Lisp, and most people here agree that this is a bad thing,
at least hampering wide-spread acceptance of the language.


I don't think that most people agree.

I attribute this to the fact that there is no maintainer
of a single implementation (as with perl) who integrates
contributions into a distribution.

You make the same category error like most other people who have stated similar things like you in the past. ANSI Common Lisp is a specification, not an implementation. End of story.

Of course there are maintainers of single implementations. Each Common Lisp implementation has at least one, and each Common Lisp implementation comes with a far richer set of libraries than what is specified in ANSI Common Lisp. Just go with the one that best suits your needs.

Many people here agree that having a common specification is a good thing. Many also agree that having more common de-facto standard libraries is also a good things, and they are successfully working on them. If you don't agree with them and prefer a single implementation, there's noone stopping you from choosing exactly one implementation and forgetting about the rest. So effectively, you have more choices than the single implementation languages where you cannot choose to focus on writing portable code against a spec, because such a spec doesn't exist over there. Lisp is about having more freedom, not less.


Pascal

--
My website: http://p-cos.net
Closer to MOP & ContextL:
http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Interesting developments since "Beating the averages"?
    ... ANSI Common Lisp is a specification, ... specific and concrete goals. ... Common Lisp is indeed one of the few languages that has met its goals. ... If you don't agree with them and prefer a single implementation, there's noone stopping you from choosing exactly one implementation and forgetting about the rest. ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: lisp revised standard
    ... Pascal Costanza wrote: ... of Python comes with a lot of libraries already bundled. ... You just have to commit yourself to a single implementation, ... Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: lisp revised standard
    ... of Python comes with a lot of libraries already bundled. ... You just have to commit yourself to a single implementation, ... Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: professional package use?
    ... have they been blessed by "the Python community" or by "someone ... that means that *anyone* could establish such a list for Common Lisp ... libraries and say "I bless these libraries." ... (currently it's the Wikipedia entry on Common Lisp followed by the ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)