Re: What I want from my Common Lisp vendor and the Common Lisp community

Subject: Re: What I want from my Common Lisp vendor and the Common Lisp community
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 17:06:58 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3208266416884194@naggum.net>

* Sam Steingold <sds@gnu.org>
> All differences between "clisp -ansi" and ANSI CL are due to lack of
> resources.

  This is a 

> We will gladly accept patches and constructive discussion towards full
> ANSI compliance.  Please subscribe to <clisp-list> and write there.
> This has been stated so many times that I fail to see the reason for
> your rudeness.

  I installed the latest available version of CLISP for GNU/Debian unstable
  because I was going bananas over the incompetence of a web designer who
  was supposed to help us get a secure news server with a web interface for
  user registration up and running in two weeks and I needed something to
  help save the day.  I am quite happy to say that CLISP saved the project
  and let me produce web pages efficiently and correctly, and I had no clue
  to how this should be done using available tools when I started, which is
  why I _had_ to use Common Lisp so I at least had some firm ground under
  my feet.  However, what I quoted from the man page is precisely among the
  things that have put me off CLISP for many years.  Remove the denigratory
  remarks about how ANSI CL is broken and how standard behavior "is not
  useful for actual everyday work".  If I want somebody's snotty opinions
  on the standard, I shall ask for it.  I do not want them in a man page
  for a purportedly conforming implementation that I want to use because I
  am excited about the language.  This has to do with the _professionalism_
  in the community, not with conformance or how right anyone are about
  their comments.  Professionals set aside their personal opinions when
  they do their work and focus on the work at hand.

///