Lars Rune N�stdal  <larsnostdal@gmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Why do people pretend this is a problem or something which is stopping
| them from using Common Lisp?
| ..it's B.S.
+---------------

Right so far...

+---------------
| SBCL + contribs (sockets, threading etc.) or wrappers like
| bordaux-threads/usocket _is_ Common Lisp in 2008 ==> done; _that's_ the
| Lisp standard extended.
+---------------

No, that's *an* example of a Common Lisp extended standard
for a certain community, but certainly not "the" standard
for the whole world.

Despite that, people using SBCL+contribs, CMUCL+contribs, ACL+contribs,
LispWorks+contribs, CLISP+contribs, GCL+contribs, etc., etc., all
seem to be able to get significant work done using Common Lisp.
More than that, *most* of the contribs are pretty portable across
*most* of the Common Lisp implementations that people seem to like
to use for real work.

So, yes, I will agree that moaning about a new ANSI Standard
wasted breath.

+---------------
| ..it's the same with any other language out there. C for example:
| GCC + glib (from the GTK+ project; you don't want to code yet another
| linked list or whatever from scratch _again_) + bsd-sockets +
| nptl-threading/pthreads _is_ C in 2008 ==> done; _that's_ the C standard
| extended.
+---------------

No, it's *an* example of the C standard extended. GCC is certainly *NOT*
the only C compiler being used for serious commercial work [and most
certainly *not* the highest-performance one!!]. Nevertheless, most
of the C compilers being used for serious commercial work have a set
of extensions/libraries/contribs that cover most of the applications
areas that most people want to code C for. And many (most?) of them
are portable across most of the serious C compilers. So in that sense
the situation for C is, as you say, not much different than the situation
for Common Lisp.

+---------------
| Now start coding something on this already!
+---------------

Agreed. To the OP: Pick a CL implementation, pick a set of contribs
that fleshes it out to support whatever application domain you're
interested in, and START CODING!

+---------------
| ..and where is the PHP standard in all this? Are you people on crack?
+---------------

"Standard? *STANDARD?!*  PHP don' need no stinkin' standard!!"[1]  ;-} ;-}


-Rob

[1] With apologies to "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre"
    for the misquote: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040897/>

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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