Subject: Re: Barriers to Lisp acceptance - a "survey" question
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 1999/03/01
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3129294462194158@naggum.no>

* David E. Young <de.young@computer.org>
| Hello Don.  You're correct, of course; I can (and do) use vendor-specific
| code for both IPC and threads.  However, having these features as part of
| the language would allow engineers (and managers) to hedge their bets in
| the event their favorite Lisp vendor meets an untimely end.

  but note that this untimely end is more likely to occur the more people
  reject to buy because of a fear of it, the more people bitch and moan
  about not getting everything for free, and the more people remove the
  incentive to help people who aren't going to pay for it immediately.

  in all this clamor for free stuff, I don't see any answers to the very
  timely question "why would _I_ want to do that?" that people who might
  want to give away stuffer others want would have to get a good answer to.

  I get a little depressed when so few people are ready to _contribute_
  free stuff before they _want_ things.  if you want a standard socket
  interface and it doesn't exist, go ahead and _write_ it, damnit.

[ this has not specifically been directed at David. ]

#:Erik