J.C. Roberts wrote: > ... > The gardeners project seems to be pointed at making Common LISP more > appealing, yet in a strange way, this implies CL is not currently > appealing. Have you ever made the mistake of telling a woman she would > be *more* attractive if... >
Good point, I think it might be more accurate to say that the gardeners project is trying to make Common Lisp more accessible to programmers and applications written in Common Lisp more appealing to non-programmers. > ... > > > > POINT #1: LIBRARY > > I think most would agree modifying the real, certified STANDARD for > Common LISP would be a long, painful nightmare, so the only working > solution is developing a "de facto" standard through adoption of a > library containing commonly needed functionality by all Common LISP > implementations. In other words, the library would be included and > available in all implementation distributions. > > POINT #2: LICENSE > > The difficult part is promoting adoption. When you look at all the > various Common LISP implementations you'll hopefully notice they all use > different licenses. This is a huge issue. If you want code to be > adopted, incorporated and used by all implementors, the license must be > free from restrictions and free from risks. > > ... > I don't agree with many of your points, but I don't think we need to argue them. I would like to point out that licenses are contracts and contract law may trump copyright law. Some people do get tied in knots over real and imagined licensing issues. Perhaps a Common Lisp Standard Library could be placed in the public domain? Some programmers may be unwilling to contribute to a non-GPLed code base, but they should be willing to use it. Perhaps the IETF approach would work with a library specification and reference implementation. Anyone who didn't want to use the reference implementation would be free to roll their own. > > POINT #3: HUMILITY > > It takes a certain degree of pragmatic humility for a developer to admit > to himself that End Users simply don't care what programming language is > used to write the program. End users are really only concerned with > three things: (1) the program works correctly, (2) the program saves > time for the user, and (3) the program is easy to install and use. There > is also (4); the program gets bonus points if it looks cool. > > ... > You're creating a stereotype user and overgeneralizing from that. Entertainment value can be substituted for item (2), for instance. However, I think your essential point is correct. Whatever their individual wants and needs, users make a conscious or unconscious cost/benefit analysis and mostly don't care what's under the hood. Developers have to keep that in mind. Regards, Steve -- Steven H. Rogers, Ph.D., [EMAIL PROTECTED] Weblog: http://shrogers.com/weblog "He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense." -- John McCarthy _______________________________________________ Gardeners mailing list [email protected] http://www.lispniks.com/mailman/listinfo/gardeners
