In article <·················@burlma1-snr2>, Barry Margolin
<······@genuity.net> wrote:
>In article <············@news3.cadvision.com>,
>Wade Humeniuk <········@cadvision.com> wrote:
>>Encyclopedias are supposed to use expert submissions for their definitions.
>>Its the only way. Either their experts are ignorant of Lisp (and need
>>correction) or they did not use any (Lisp) experts. Let the other language
>>supporters worry about their own submissions.
>
>They probably used computer science experts, not Lisp experts. Like I said
>before, that entry is typical of what most CS professors and practitioners
>think of Lisp. It was pretty true 20 years ago when most of the "experts"
>learned their craft. If I were an encyclopedia editor, I would expect that
>someone practicing their craft for several decades would be competent to
>write a one-paragraph description of something.
>
>For a multi-page entry on a big topic, I'd expect the publisher to look for
>someone with detailed expertise on that specific entry. E.g. the entry on
>dogs should be written by people who specialize in dogs, not general
>zoologists or zookeepers. But I think you're expecting a bit much if you
>think they'll spend the resources to look for experts in Lisp for a tiny
>entry like that; if they have general computer resources, they'll use them
>for the minor entries. The effort has to be proportional to the result.
From (limited) experience (as a copy-editor on a technical dictionary and
onetime contributor to a technical encyclopedia) I would say that reference
publishers' ideas of both experts and sources are not like ours at all (fsvo
"ours"). Experts are often on a catch-as-catch-can basis, if only because the
absolutely best-qualified people are too busy and, if they accept, will likely
farm the work out to an apprentice anyway. And way too much is made of
reference materials _appearing in print_, which means that marketing bumf
may be taken as an arbiter of fact, or at least a source of information about
what terms and issues in a field are important.
It's not really their fault, but it can be annoying.
paul