Duncan Rose wrote: > I still think the idea of gardening is a good one; I suspect we (as 'a > community') just haven't yet found anything large enough to coalesce > around that has enough scope so that everybody can help out at their > respective ability level and feel that their input is useful. I get the > impression that much of Lisp (at least the Free bits) is at the stage > Linux was at 15 (ish) years ago; download the kernel, download the > tools individually, jump through hoops building stuff, and with > sufficient perseverance you end up with a useful (although likely > bespoke) system you can play with (I enjoyed Linux at this stage :-). > The proprietary Lisps seem to me to be more like distributions; they > have GUIs and assorted tools / libraries, all packaged together (and > documented consistently) and working out of the box.
That's a good comparison. A "Lisp distribution" would be useful. Peter Seibel's Lisp in a Box would probably be a good starting point, and a good place to try out the "Lisp standard library" that has been discussed here. A Lisp distribution that comes with a bunch of standard libraries -- regular expressions, databases, web stuff, test frameworks etc. -- all guaranteed to work together correctly could make Lisp a "batteries included" language like Perl, Python, or Ruby. The ASDF system tests now up at enterpriselisp.com could be helpful in assembling such a package. -Stuart _______________________________________________ Gardeners mailing list [email protected] http://www.lispniks.com/mailman/listinfo/gardeners
