On Dec 16, 2005, at 8:35 AM, Marco Antoniotti wrote:

>
> On Dec 16, 2005, at 11:18 AM, David Newton wrote:
>>>
>>>
>> I guess I don't really think the standard is the issue anyway, at  
>> least
>> not for me. The primary issues for me aren't language issues but
>> implementation issues, topped by threading, cross-implementation
>> library
>> installation, and environment setup.
>>
>> Being a developer and not a system administrator, I feel pretty
>> strongly
>> that I shouldn't have to fight a battle every time I want to set up a
>> Lisp web application development environment, worry about whether or
>> not
>> threads are supported, figure out how to install all the libraries I
>> need every time, or rediscover how to integrate my platform's  
>> windowing
>> system into the standalone application I'm developing.
>
> But that is exactly what standards are for.  And in the CL world you
> need to take into account several implementors commercial and not.

That's true. But there's a big difference, between little "s"  
standards (probably de facto) and "The Standard", i.e. the ANSI  
Standard. As I'm sure you know. My point is that if we want to  
encourage the emergence of standards for anything it needs to be an  
organic process--get implementations to converge on doing the same  
thing in the same way and *then* say, let's write up what we all have  
already agreed upon and call it the FOO Standard. That the Common  
Lisp standard worked at all is, I believe, a consequence that almost  
all of it was the codification of existing practice.

-Peter

-- 
Peter Seibel           * [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Gigamonkeys Consulting * http://www.gigamonkeys.com/
Practical Common Lisp  * http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/


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