On Dec 13, 2005, at 7:49 PM, Benjamin Tovar wrote: > >> I'd suggest you focus your efforts on the ALU wiki >> (http:// wiki.lisp.org/) as the Cliki has a somewhat >> narrower mission of discussion of Free and Open Source >> lisps. Dunno about anyone else but I think if we're >> interested in promoting the use of Lisp we should be >> fairly inclusive. (Which is not to say I think the Cliki, >> with it's focus is a bad idea--just that it's a different >> thing.) > > I noticed today the following link: > > http://wiki.alu.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions > > Is this the FAQ we should focus our efforts around?
So, for whatever it's worth, here's what I was thinking vis a vis a FAQ. I'm personally willing to do some work to produce a good Common Lisp FAQ, mostly because I think it looks really dumb that when you Google for "lisp faq" the first link is to the old c.l.l. FAQ which, while good in many ways, hasn't been updated in almost 10 years. However I also have a strong (and perhaps anachronistic) belief in the value of editorial control. That is, I think the best FAQs are those that are filtered through a single editorial sensibility-- either a single person or a small number of like-minded individuals. And, as you might imagine, I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about how to explain Lisp, particularly to non-Lispers, and have some opinions about the right and wrong way to do it. Assuming we actually succeed in producing an updated comprehensive Common Lisp FAQ, it will likely be one of the early entry points for new Lispers so it's especially important that it strike the right tone; something that Lispers have historically not been so great at. So I'm less interested in working on a FAQ that's going to be on a Wiki, particularly given the oft times contentious nature of the larger Lisp community. Instead I'd much rather take my best crack at writing/ editing a FAQ and then putting it up on the CL Gardeners web site and seeing if we can make it the top result for "lisp faq" on Google and not worrying about whether everyone in "the Lisp community" likes it. (I learned early not to worry too much about getting the support of 100% of Lispers when, while working on Practical Common Lisp, I got an email from a prominent Lisper asking me what business I had writing a book about Lisp.) If it doesn't seem too radically immodest I propose this: I'll set up a mailing list for working on a FAQ and folks can send questions and proposed answers to the list and discuss them and I'll act as an editor, organizing them into a single FAQ document and tweaking things for tone and technical correctness. There are two key points to this proposal: a) that there be an overall editor who has the final say over the contents of the document and b) that I am that editor. I care much more about point (a) than point (b) though I'd like to think I'm pretty well qualified for the task. Shall we give it a try? Anyone else want the job? Worst case, if it doesn't work out, is you depose me and appoint a new editor or forget this whole editor foolishness and write a collectively edited FAQ on the Wiki. -Peter -- Peter Seibel * [EMAIL PROTECTED] Gigamonkeys Consulting * http://www.gigamonkeys.com/ Practical Common Lisp * http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ _______________________________________________ Gardeners mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.lispniks.com/mailman/listinfo/gardeners
