I just put two new chapters, 14 and 15, of my book up on my website at:
<http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/>
They are both about object orientation in Common Lisp and one of them
(chapter 14) completely replaces the version I posted a note about a
few weeks ago. As always I'm interested in any feedback folks have,
good, bad, or ugly.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: Raistlin Magere
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <caktll$jg5$1@news.ox.ac.uk>
"Peter Seibel" <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote in message
···················@javamonkey.com...
>As always I'm interested in any feedback folks have, good, bad, or ugly.
>
Just a small question, do you really think that the best way to handle notes
is to put all of them at the end of the chapter?
As I find that quite disruptive of the flow of reading. Personally I like
reading the notes when they appear in the text and having to flick back and
forth between the page I am reading and the chapter end can be quite
annoying (especially with long chapters). I would rather see the notes at
the bottom of the page as footnotes though it's way better having them at
the end of the chapter rather than at the end of the book.
Raistlin
From: Will Hartung
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <2j70d5Fu52pmU1@uni-berlin.de>
"Raistlin Magere" <·······@*the-mail-that-burns*.com> wrote in message
·················@news.ox.ac.uk...
>
> "Peter Seibel" <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote in message
> ···················@javamonkey.com...
> >As always I'm interested in any feedback folks have, good, bad, or ugly.
> >
>
> Just a small question, do you really think that the best way to handle
notes
> is to put all of them at the end of the chapter?
> As I find that quite disruptive of the flow of reading. Personally I like
> reading the notes when they appear in the text and having to flick back
and
> forth between the page I am reading and the chapter end can be quite
> annoying (especially with long chapters). I would rather see the notes at
> the bottom of the page as footnotes though it's way better having them at
> the end of the chapter rather than at the end of the book.
But then there's the argument that if they were necessary within the flow of
the text, they'd actually be IN the text.
As notes, I figure they are there for related and/or more detailed
information perhaps on the fringe of being on topic for the text. So, they
are something made available by the author perhaps on a second reading.
Ideally, the text would be usable without the notes at all, taken as a stand
alone text.
IMHO et al.
Regards,
Will Hartung
(·····@msoft.com)
From: rmagere
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <camj2l$83p$1@news.ox.ac.uk>
Will Hartung wrote:
> But then there's the argument that if they were necessary within the
> flow of the text, they'd actually be IN the text.
>
> As notes, I figure they are there for related and/or more detailed
> information perhaps on the fringe of being on topic for the text. So,
> they are something made available by the author perhaps on a second
> reading. Ideally, the text would be usable without the notes at all,
> taken as a stand alone text.
>
You are perfectly right that the main text should not need the information
present in the notes, as otherwise they wouldn't be notes. In fact the text
written by Peter doesn't need the notes - the notes are just an extra
clarification or expansion of a given thought. However saying that the text
doesn't need the notes is not the same as saying that the notes do not
need the text, i.e. I cannot just reach the end of the chapter, book and
start reading all the notes and understand what they are talking about, I
have to put them within a context and arguably (well from my point of view
not really arguably but everything is IMHO) it is much easier to place a
note in the appropriate context if it appears in the same page where it is
used rather than 20 pages after.
From: Will Hartung
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <2j8p4hFu8li9U1@uni-berlin.de>
"rmagere" <·······@*the-mail-that-burns*.com> wrote in message
·················@news.ox.ac.uk...
> Will Hartung wrote:
> > But then there's the argument that if they were necessary within the
> > flow of the text, they'd actually be IN the text.
> >
> > As notes, I figure they are there for related and/or more detailed
> > information perhaps on the fringe of being on topic for the text. So,
> > they are something made available by the author perhaps on a second
> > reading. Ideally, the text would be usable without the notes at all,
> > taken as a stand alone text.
> You are perfectly right that the main text should not need the information
> present in the notes, as otherwise they wouldn't be notes. In fact the
text
> written by Peter doesn't need the notes - the notes are just an extra
> clarification or expansion of a given thought. However saying that the
text
> doesn't need the notes is not the same as saying that the notes do not
> need the text, i.e. I cannot just reach the end of the chapter, book and
> start reading all the notes and understand what they are talking about, I
> have to put them within a context and arguably (well from my point of view
> not really arguably but everything is IMHO) it is much easier to place a
> note in the appropriate context if it appears in the same page where it is
> used rather than 20 pages after.
I'm not disagreeing, however it's all a matter of usage pattern.
Certainly, the notes are not meant to be read sequentially and in isolation.
Rather, I assert, the notes are there for use after the primary, initial
reading for when someone wished to go back over the text, and get some more
depth. Then they can re-read the text, and flip back and pick up the
specific notes that hilite the point in the text.
With a footnote, it is very tempting for the reader to simply drop down to
the bottom of the page and read the footnote "inline" with the main text.
This can be distracting. Also, if a foot note is particularly long, you end
up with half of the page being footnote and not text (which seems kind of
odd from a presentation point of view, IMHO). If the goal was for the note
to be with the text, it would have been included with it. With the notes in
the back, odds are pretty good that during a general reading, the notes
won't be consulted at all while the text is read, but rather cherry picked
later as the reader readdresses earlier topics.
So, it's all a matter of intent by the author.
On the one hand, the author wants to be as complete as practical, but on the
other, you don't want to get side tracked on minutae that can clutter the
text. So, it's a balancing act.
Regards,
Will Hartung
(·····@msoft.com)
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <m3smcykk1s.fsf@javamonkey.com>
"Raistlin Magere" <·······@*the-mail-that-burns*.com> writes:
> "Peter Seibel" <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote in message
> ···················@javamonkey.com...
>>As always I'm interested in any feedback folks have, good, bad, or ugly.
>>
>
> Just a small question, do you really think that the best way to handle notes
> is to put all of them at the end of the chapter?
> As I find that quite disruptive of the flow of reading. Personally I like
> reading the notes when they appear in the text and having to flick back and
> forth between the page I am reading and the chapter end can be quite
> annoying (especially with long chapters). I would rather see the notes at
> the bottom of the page as footnotes though it's way better having them at
> the end of the chapter rather than at the end of the book.
No I don't think it's the best way. However there is no "bottom of the
page" in HTML that is different than the end of the page. I am,
however, gearing up to try to convince the publisher to make them
footnotes as opposed to endnotes in the book--dunno if they'll have
any objection to that.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: Raistlin Magere
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <cakve7$k68$1@news.ox.ac.uk>
> No I don't think it's the best way. However there is no "bottom of the
> page" in HTML that is different than the end of the page. I am,
> however, gearing up to try to convince the publisher to make them
> footnotes as opposed to endnotes in the book--dunno if they'll have
> any objection to that.
>
Yeah, sorry I should have made clear that the comment was mainly referring
to your final book version, and also for some reason I was thinking in terms
of LaTeX rather than html and I thought your were using the command \endnote
rather than \footnote.
Raistlin
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <m3k6y9lvy5.fsf@javamonkey.com>
"Raistlin Magere" <·······@*the-mail-that-burns*.com> writes:
>> No I don't think it's the best way. However there is no "bottom of the
>> page" in HTML that is different than the end of the page. I am,
>> however, gearing up to try to convince the publisher to make them
>> footnotes as opposed to endnotes in the book--dunno if they'll have
>> any objection to that.
>>
> Yeah, sorry I should have made clear that the comment was mainly referring
> to your final book version, and also for some reason I was thinking in terms
> of LaTeX rather than html and I thought your were using the command \endnote
> rather than \footnote.
LaTeX, pah. Don't be silly. I'm using a homebrew markup system that I
wrote in Common Lisp. ;-)
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: André Thieme
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <canndd$s3i$1@ulric.tng.de>
Peter Seibel schrieb:
> LaTeX, pah. Don't be silly. I'm using a homebrew markup system that I
> wrote in Common Lisp. ;-)
Can you say a bit more about what this is and can do?
Andr�
--
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <m3659sh0vf.fsf@javamonkey.com>
Andr� Thieme <······························@justmail.de> writes:
> Peter Seibel schrieb:
>
>> LaTeX, pah. Don't be silly. I'm using a homebrew markup system that I
>> wrote in Common Lisp. ;-)
>
> Can you say a bit more about what this is and can do?
I wrote a simple parser that groks TeX style \foo{} markup plus a bit
of Wiki-style markup. E.g. blank lines delimit paragraphs, anything
indented two spaces is a block quote, anything indented four or more
spaces is sample code, and any lines with leading *'s (i.e. emacs
outline-mode lines) are headers. It parses a file and turns it into a
big tagged s-expression. For example this:
\foo{This is some \i{italic} text}
gets turned into:
(foo "This is some " (i "italic") " text")
Then I wrote two programs--one that converts the s-expression as HTML
(what's I put up on the web) and another one that uses cl-typesetting
to generate pretty nice looking PDFs that I use for doing my own
red-pen editing. At the moment all the "styles" are hardwired because
I've been too lazy to generalize it. I also handle footnotes (er,
endnotes) specially--they're embedded in text like\note{this} and the
generators put the footnote marker in the text and save the note text
to be emitted whenever (currently at the end of the chapter as
endnotes as has been discussed here at length. ;-))
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Andr� Thieme <······························@justmail.de> writes:
| > Peter Seibel schrieb:
| >> LaTeX, pah. Don't be silly. I'm using a homebrew markup system that I
| >> wrote in Common Lisp. ;-)
| >
| > Can you say a bit more about what this is and can do?
|
| I wrote a simple parser that groks TeX style \foo{} markup plus a bit
| of Wiki-style markup.
...
| \foo{This is some \i{italic} text}
| gets turned into:
| (foo "This is some " (i "italic") " text")
+---------------
At some point, you might want to look at TML (Tim Bradshaw,
vice Erik Naggum), in which you would write that thusly:
<foo|This is some <i|italic> text>
Tim's TML (for better or worse) also permits HTML-style attributes,
which are evaluated as Lisp expressions, e.g.:
<foo|This is some <font :color "red"|bright red> text>
Tim's company uses TML as the master entry format for a sizable
body of documentation, which is (like yours) post-processed into
several forms...
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
From: Tim Bradshaw
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <ey3d640uez8.fsf@cley.com>
* Rob Warnock wrote:
> Tim's TML (for better or worse) also permits HTML-style attributes,
> which are evaluated as Lisp expressions, e.g.:
> <foo|This is some <font :color "red"|bright red> text>
> Tim's company uses TML as the master entry format for a sizable
> body of documentation, which is (like yours) post-processed into
> several forms...
In fact we only really generate HTML at present. We then use html2ps
to generate PostScript, and from that PDF and paper. If I had time
I'd probably try and do some parse-tree -> page markup language thing
which was more direct, as html2ps is a huge Perl script with obscure
and interesting bugs and isn't really maintained. Having said that,
we generate two fairly different versions of the HTML, one for online
viewing during development and one for paper, as well as multiple
variants of everything. I think we have somewhat over 1000 pages of
paper done this way (in lots of variants) at present - the limitation
is typing it in...
--tim
(Before anyone asks. The basic (D)TML system will at some point be
free: it's waiting for me to have time to clean it up and write some
documentation. This will probably be some time.)
What are the advantages of any of these systems over LaTeX? I've used
LaTeX for years, and think it's pretty good, but I'm always on the
lookout for better tools.
rif
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <m3wu27eezp.fsf@javamonkey.com>
rif <···@mit.edu> writes:
> What are the advantages of any of these systems over LaTeX? I've used
> LaTeX for years, and think it's pretty good, but I'm always on the
> lookout for better tools.
For me the advantage is I understand it and when it doesn't do what I
want I can change it. Plus writing it gave me an excuse to hack Lisp
while technically "working on my book". ;-)
More seriously, having a typesetting system that is based on a
somewhat abstract intermediate form (s-expressions) makes it easy to
do different stuff with it--I can also whip up a program in a few
lines of Lisp to figure out the first place I mention each symbol in
the COMMON-LISP package. And if I decide I want to format the first
instance of such symbols differently than subsequent ones that's easy
to hack up without changing the markup. I dunno if TeX's macro
language is powerful enough for that.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote in message news:<··············@javamonkey.com>...
> rif <···@mit.edu> writes:
>
> > What are the advantages of any of these systems over LaTeX? I've used
> > LaTeX for years, and think it's pretty good, but I'm always on the
> > lookout for better tools.
>
> For me the advantage is I understand it and when it doesn't do what I
> want I can change it. Plus writing it gave me an excuse to hack Lisp
> while technically "working on my book". ;-)
>
> More seriously, having a typesetting system that is based on a
> somewhat abstract intermediate form (s-expressions) makes it easy to
> do different stuff with it--I can also whip up a program in a few
> lines of Lisp to figure out the first place I mention each symbol in
> the COMMON-LISP package.
Peter, have you considered making this typesetting system one of your
Practical Examples? When I was writing a tutorial for Ruby, I wrote
the typesetter in parallel and actually made that my example. The
tutorial explained the program used to write the tutorial. Several
people really liked the approach.
I know I'd be interested to see how you did it, and it sounds like a
good Practical Example. Your practical examples that are upcoming are
the parts of your book that make me prick up my ears the most.
- Dave Fayram
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <m3ekofdv48.fsf@javamonkey.com>
·········@lensmen.net (Dave Fayram) writes:
> Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote in message news:<··············@javamonkey.com>...
>> rif <···@mit.edu> writes:
>>
>> > What are the advantages of any of these systems over LaTeX? I've used
>> > LaTeX for years, and think it's pretty good, but I'm always on the
>> > lookout for better tools.
>>
>> For me the advantage is I understand it and when it doesn't do what I
>> want I can change it. Plus writing it gave me an excuse to hack Lisp
>> while technically "working on my book". ;-)
>>
>> More seriously, having a typesetting system that is based on a
>> somewhat abstract intermediate form (s-expressions) makes it easy to
>> do different stuff with it--I can also whip up a program in a few
>> lines of Lisp to figure out the first place I mention each symbol in
>> the COMMON-LISP package.
>
> Peter, have you considered making this typesetting system one of your
> Practical Examples? When I was writing a tutorial for Ruby, I wrote
> the typesetter in parallel and actually made that my example. The
> tutorial explained the program used to write the tutorial. Several
> people really liked the approach.
>
> I know I'd be interested to see how you did it, and it sounds like a
> good Practical Example. Your practical examples that are upcoming are
> the parts of your book that make me prick up my ears the most.
Yup, I'm considering it. I've just got a couple of chapters that I'm
trying to finish as fast as I can and then I start cranking out
example code and writing about it until I run out of time.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 21:58:06 +0000, Peter Seibel wrote:
>> I know I'd be interested to see how you did it, and it sounds like a
>> good Practical Example. Your practical examples that are upcoming are
>> the parts of your book that make me prick up my ears the most.
>
> Yup, I'm considering it. I've just got a couple of chapters that I'm
> trying to finish as fast as I can and then I start cranking out
> example code and writing about it until I run out of time.
>
> -Peter
I had a funny idea on this. Possibly crap, but here it is:
Start the chapter in a dull monospaced font, with no formatting, so it's
just plain text (take inspiration from pre-TeX mathematics texts!).
Develop the typesetting system and use it at the same time. So the text
itself gets fancier and fancier as the chapter goes on. The end of the
chapter is, of course, beautifully typeset.
For example, you might have:
"Currently our simple typesetter can't represent things like bold and
italic characters.
<discussion of how to add bold and italic attributes to the typesetter>
Now that we have made those changes to our typesetter, we can use BOLD and
/italic/ characters!"
Like I said, feel free to ignore the idea - it might be crap, but I can
imagine it being fun if done well...
Cheers,
Bill.
--
Dr. William Bland.
It would not be too unfair to any language to refer to Java as a
stripped down Lisp or Smalltalk with a C syntax. (Ken Anderson).
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <m31xkeevid.fsf@javamonkey.com>
William Bland <·······@abstractnonsense.com> writes:
> On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 21:58:06 +0000, Peter Seibel wrote:
>>> I know I'd be interested to see how you did it, and it sounds like a
>>> good Practical Example. Your practical examples that are upcoming are
>>> the parts of your book that make me prick up my ears the most.
>>
>> Yup, I'm considering it. I've just got a couple of chapters that I'm
>> trying to finish as fast as I can and then I start cranking out
>> example code and writing about it until I run out of time.
>>
>> -Peter
>
> I had a funny idea on this. Possibly crap, but here it is:
>
> Start the chapter in a dull monospaced font, with no formatting, so
> it's just plain text (take inspiration from pre-TeX mathematics
> texts!). Develop the typesetting system and use it at the same time.
> So the text itself gets fancier and fancier as the chapter goes on.
> The end of the chapter is, of course, beautifully typeset.
>
> For example, you might have:
>
> "Currently our simple typesetter can't represent things like bold
> and italic characters.
>
> <discussion of how to add bold and italic attributes to the typesetter>
>
> Now that we have made those changes to our typesetter, we can use BOLD and
> /italic/ characters!"
>
> Like I said, feel free to ignore the idea - it might be crap, but I can
> imagine it being fun if done well...
I like it. I'm not sure I'm creative enough to pull it off well but I
appreciate the thought.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: André Thieme
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <caqs5u$rf$2@ulric.tng.de>
William Bland schrieb:
> On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 21:58:06 +0000, Peter Seibel wrote:
>
>>>I know I'd be interested to see how you did it, and it sounds like a
>>>good Practical Example. Your practical examples that are upcoming are
>>>the parts of your book that make me prick up my ears the most.
>>
>>Yup, I'm considering it. I've just got a couple of chapters that I'm
>>trying to finish as fast as I can and then I start cranking out
>>example code and writing about it until I run out of time.
>>
>>-Peter
>
>
> I had a funny idea on this. Possibly crap, but here it is:
>
> Start the chapter in a dull monospaced font, with no formatting, so it's
> just plain text (take inspiration from pre-TeX mathematics texts!).
> Develop the typesetting system and use it at the same time. So the text
> itself gets fancier and fancier as the chapter goes on. The end of the
> chapter is, of course, beautifully typeset.
>
> For example, you might have:
>
> "Currently our simple typesetter can't represent things like bold and
> italic characters.
>
> <discussion of how to add bold and italic attributes to the typesetter>
>
> Now that we have made those changes to our typesetter, we can use BOLD and
> /italic/ characters!"
>
> Like I said, feel free to ignore the idea - it might be crap, but I can
> imagine it being fun if done well...
If his publisher does not agree with this idea it is still possible to
give from time to time some examples of what one can do at the current
stage of the tool.
Andr�
--
On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 03:32:11 +0200, Andr� Thieme wrote:
> William Bland schrieb:
>> I had a funny idea on this. Possibly crap, but here it is:
>
> If his publisher does not agree with this idea it is still possible to
> give from time to time some examples of what one can do at the current
> stage of the tool.
Sure, that would be ok too, but I think the idea I was talking about might
have more impact - like "Growing a Language" by Guy Steele, where he
starts writing everything using very simple words, and can only use more
complex words once he has defined them. It has an impact that would be
lost if he had just given examples like "now we can say 'blah'".
Cheers,
Bill.
--
Dr. William Bland.
It would not be too unfair to any language to refer to Java as a
stripped down Lisp or Smalltalk with a C syntax. (Ken Anderson).
William Bland <·······@abstractnonsense.com> writes:
> Start the chapter in a dull monospaced font, with no formatting, so it's
> just plain text (take inspiration from pre-TeX mathematics texts!).
> Develop the typesetting system and use it at the same time. So the text
> itself gets fancier and fancier as the chapter goes on. The end of the
> chapter is, of course, beautifully typeset.
[...]
> Like I said, feel free to ignore the idea - it might be crap, but I can
> imagine it being fun if done well...
A similar layout was used by Jon Bentley in "More Programming Pearls".
See the first paragraph of column 10 DOCUMENT DESIGN, on page 101.
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (Google for info on each):
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
From: André Thieme
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <caqs23$rf$1@ulric.tng.de>
Peter Seibel schrieb:
> ·········@lensmen.net (Dave Fayram) writes:
>
>
>>Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote in message news:<··············@javamonkey.com>...
>>
>>>rif <···@mit.edu> writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>>What are the advantages of any of these systems over LaTeX? I've used
>>>>LaTeX for years, and think it's pretty good, but I'm always on the
>>>>lookout for better tools.
>>>
>>>For me the advantage is I understand it and when it doesn't do what I
>>>want I can change it. Plus writing it gave me an excuse to hack Lisp
>>>while technically "working on my book". ;-)
>>>
>>>More seriously, having a typesetting system that is based on a
>>>somewhat abstract intermediate form (s-expressions) makes it easy to
>>>do different stuff with it--I can also whip up a program in a few
>>>lines of Lisp to figure out the first place I mention each symbol in
>>>the COMMON-LISP package.
>>
>>Peter, have you considered making this typesetting system one of your
>>Practical Examples? When I was writing a tutorial for Ruby, I wrote
>>the typesetter in parallel and actually made that my example. The
>>tutorial explained the program used to write the tutorial. Several
>>people really liked the approach.
>>
>>I know I'd be interested to see how you did it, and it sounds like a
>>good Practical Example. Your practical examples that are upcoming are
>>the parts of your book that make me prick up my ears the most.
>
>
> Yup, I'm considering it. I've just got a couple of chapters that I'm
> trying to finish as fast as I can and then I start cranking out
> example code and writing about it until I run out of time.
>
I also wanted to suggest this, as it sounded (<-- note to myself: not an
irregular verb) interesting to me.
Comment to the book in general:
I like that your chapters are not overly long. Do you know Kent Becks
book about TDD? I think he got it perfect. Every chapter is only two to
five pages long. Even on a stressy day when I don't really have too much
time to read it is still possible to read one chapter. This is a good
"mind-unit" of information. I can read it fast, have the feeling I
managed something and in fact, I learned how to place one more piece of
the puzzle.
Just keep adding many many chapters and keep them short. Good work so far.
Andr�
--
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <m3wu26dgv6.fsf@javamonkey.com>
Andr� Thieme <······························@justmail.de> writes:
> Peter Seibel schrieb:
>> ·········@lensmen.net (Dave Fayram) writes:
>>
>>>Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote in message news:<··············@javamonkey.com>...
>>>
>>>>rif <···@mit.edu> writes:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>What are the advantages of any of these systems over LaTeX? I've used
>>>>>LaTeX for years, and think it's pretty good, but I'm always on the
>>>>>lookout for better tools.
>>>>
>>>>For me the advantage is I understand it and when it doesn't do what I
>>>>want I can change it. Plus writing it gave me an excuse to hack Lisp
>>>>while technically "working on my book". ;-)
>>>>
>>>>More seriously, having a typesetting system that is based on a
>>>>somewhat abstract intermediate form (s-expressions) makes it easy to
>>>>do different stuff with it--I can also whip up a program in a few
>>>>lines of Lisp to figure out the first place I mention each symbol in
>>>> the COMMON-LISP package.
>>>
>>>Peter, have you considered making this typesetting system one of your
>>>Practical Examples? When I was writing a tutorial for Ruby, I wrote
>>>the typesetter in parallel and actually made that my example. The
>>>tutorial explained the program used to write the tutorial. Several
>>>people really liked the approach.
>>>
>>>I know I'd be interested to see how you did it, and it sounds like a
>>>good Practical Example. Your practical examples that are upcoming are
>>>the parts of your book that make me prick up my ears the most.
>> Yup, I'm considering it. I've just got a couple of chapters that I'm
>> trying to finish as fast as I can and then I start cranking out
>> example code and writing about it until I run out of time.
>>
>
> I also wanted to suggest this, as it sounded (<-- note to myself: not
> an irregular verb) interesting to me.
>
> Comment to the book in general:
> I like that your chapters are not overly long. Do you know Kent Becks
> book about TDD? I think he got it perfect. Every chapter is only two
> to five pages long. Even on a stressy day when I don't really have too
> much time to read it is still possible to read one chapter. This is a
> good "mind-unit" of information. I can read it fast, have the feeling
> I managed something and in fact, I learned how to place one more piece
> of the puzzle.
> Just keep adding many many chapters and keep them short. Good work so far.
Thanks. So far chapters have run about 3,000 words. The last two (on
OO) got away from me a bit coming in more around 5,000-6,000. But I
will have a chance to do some reorganization once I get all the
material down in some form.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: Lieven Marchand
Subject: Re: New CLOS chapters for Practical Common Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <87vfhr4dyg.fsf@wyrd.be>
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> writes:
> I dunno if TeX's macro language is powerful enough for that.
It's fully Turing complete and a lot of stuff has been done in it that
would probably be better in a more suitable language.
From the time that latex.tex was the best documentation for it, I
remember this gem:
·····@········@nil{#1}
·····@········@nil{#2}
--
An amateur practices until he gets it right,
A professional practices until she can't get it wrong.
rif <···@mit.edu> wrote in message news:<···············@five-percent-nation.mit.edu>...
> What are the advantages of any of these systems over LaTeX? I've used
> LaTeX for years, and think it's pretty good, but I'm always on the
> lookout for better tools.
I think `not being designed by a mad person' is a signficant advantage
of any system over TeX, when it comes to programming, anyway.
Am 17 Jun 2004 09:51:44 -0700 schrieb Tim Bradshaw <··········@tfeb.org>:
> rif <···@mit.edu> wrote in message
> news:<···············@five-percent-nation.mit.edu>...
>> What are the advantages of any of these systems over LaTeX? I've used
>> LaTeX for years, and think it's pretty good, but I'm always on the
>> lookout for better tools.
>
> I think `not being designed by a mad person' is a signficant advantage
> of any system over TeX, when it comes to programming, anyway.
You think Knuth is/was mad? (I mean, did he have any good example to copy
from? Maybe he liked PS? ;))
--
,,
\../ / <<< The LISP Effect
|_\\ _==__
__ | |bb| | _________________________________________________
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> writes:
> I am, however, gearing up to try to convince the publisher to make
> them footnotes as opposed to endnotes in the book--dunno if they'll
> have any objection to that.
Marginal notes are even nicer, IMHO. It does require generous
margins, but it looks great -- see e.g. Bringhurst's Elements of
Typographic Style.
--
Jesper Harder <http://purl.org/harder/>
Jesper Harder <······@myrealbox.com> writes:
> Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> writes:
>
> > I am, however, gearing up to try to convince the publisher to make
> > them footnotes as opposed to endnotes in the book--dunno if they'll
> > have any objection to that.
>
> Marginal notes are even nicer, IMHO. It does require generous
> margins, but it looks great -- see e.g. Bringhurst's Elements of
> Typographic Style.
And "Concrete mathematics" (Graham, Knuth, Patasnik) and
Mackay's book on information theory, inference, etc, recently
mentioned in another thread here. Good books, one and all;
though GKP and Mackay don't have quite Bringhurst's elegance,
they're probably nearer to the form factor, as well as the
subject matter, of Peter's book :-).
--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc
Gareth McCaughan wrote:
>> Marginal notes are even nicer, IMHO. It does require generous
>> margins, but it looks great -- see e.g. Bringhurst's Elements of
>> Typographic Style.
>
> And "Concrete mathematics" (Graham, Knuth, Patasnik) and
> Mackay's book on information theory, inference, etc, recently
> mentioned in another thread here. Good books, one and all;
> though GKP and Mackay don't have quite Bringhurst's elegance,
> they're probably nearer to the form factor, as well as the
> subject matter, of Peter's book :-).
A beginners book also shouldn't be that pricy. Nice design is great and
obligatory for books about that topic but it often raises it's cost. I
think a newbie does really look at the price. (Don't misunderstand me, I
really like well-designed stuff, but there're sometimes reasons that weigh
more.)
I also think that wide margins for footnotes/marginal notes only make
sence when you have really a lot footnotes and they're really text on a
second level (ie. you can possibly quickread the book by looking just at
the marginal notes). It doesn't look like that's gonna be the case with
Peter's book.
-ts
--
,,
\../ / <<< The LISP Effect
|_\\ _==__
__ | |bb| | _________________________________________________