The Seattle Public Library system http://www.spl.org has a pretty good array
of technical books. Not so in the case of Lisp. All I can find are:
"LISPcraft." Robert Wilensky, 1984
"Looking at LISP." Tony Hasemer, 1984.
"Exploring Randomness." Gregory J. Chaitin, 2001. (Primarily about
physics.)
Scheme is in worse shape. There is at least a "LISP (Computer Program
Language)" category, but no such beast for Scheme. No books at all.
"Python (Computer Programming Language)" has 7 entries, dating from 1999 to
2003.
"Java (Computer Programming Language)" has 81 entries.
"C# (Computer Programming Language)" has 112 entries.
If you're in a major metro area, I'm curious if your municipal library
system has any better showing for Lisp? I would expect university libraries
to fare much better. For instance, the U. Washington online catalog shows
76 entries for Lisp.
I imagine the public library acquisitions reflect whatever's going on at
retail booksellers. I sense a Barnes & Noble field trip! And maybe I'll
pick up the 3 books on Lisp at the library while I'm at it.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"Troll" - (n.) Anything you don't like.
Usage: "He's just a troll."
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> If you're in a major metro area, I'm curious if your municipal
> library system has any better showing for Lisp? I would expect
> university libraries to fare much better. For instance, the U.
> Washington online catalog shows 76 entries for Lisp.
>
> I imagine the public library acquisitions reflect whatever's going
> on at retail booksellers. I sense a Barnes & Noble field trip!
> And maybe I'll pick up the 3 books on Lisp at the library while
> I'm at it.
It's a global problem. When I went to Oslo's university tech bookstore
during ECOOP (next to the engineering area), their buyer mentioned to
me that he'd ordered a number of Lisp books, which were in demand; but
the publisher or distributor never fulfilled them. In particular...
Paul Graham's On Lisp. ;) Apparently they didn't tell him it's out of
print.
And Oslo apparently has an unusually large concentration of Lisp users.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> The Seattle Public Library system http://www.spl.org has a pretty good array
> of technical books. Not so in the case of Lisp. All I can find are:
[...]
> If you're in a major metro area, I'm curious if your municipal library
> system has any better showing for Lisp? I would expect university libraries
> to fare much better. For instance, the U. Washington online catalog shows
> 76 entries for Lisp.
Is that important? I wouldn't expect an ordinary library have any
useful books in CS. That's what universities are for. If a book is
really good, I usually buy it myself anyway.
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>> The Seattle Public Library system http://www.spl.org has a pretty
>> good array of technical books. Not so in the case of Lisp. All I
>> can find are:
> [...]
>> If you're in a major metro area, I'm curious if your municipal
>> library system has any better showing for Lisp? I would expect
>> university libraries to fare much better. For instance, the U.
>> Washington online catalog shows 76 entries for Lisp.
>
> Is that important? I wouldn't expect an ordinary library have any
> useful books in CS. That's what universities are for. If a book is
> really good, I usually buy it myself anyway.
I think in a tech center like Seattle it is indeed important. The Seattle
Public Library has a large sampling of technical books - obviously not
uber-technical books like you'd find in a university research stack, but
certainly, many bases are covered.
My trip to Barnes & Noble yielded only 1 Lisp book on the shelf. "Lisp, 3rd
Edition" by Winston & Horn, 1989. I probably read the 1st or 2nd edition as
a senior in high school in 1988! Either that or I'm misremembering and read
it on my own recognizance in the 1992..94 time period. Either way that's
awhile ago.
Went to see if Borders was any better. 0 Lisp books in evidence on the
shelf. They had a helpful "Title Sleuth" kiosk, so I did searches with
that. The first 27 entries were out of print - not good marketing at a
kiosk, that! I think there were 100+ entries total, many requiring a 7 day
or less shipment, others out of print again.
The 3 books in the Seattle Public Library were useless. The 1984 books were
too old, and the 2001 book was mostly about information theory. It just
happened to be done in Lisp.
So, the main value of my trip was getting some nice exercise walking
downtown, and blowing off signature gathering on a freezing rain / sleeting
afternoon. Oh, and I took advantage of the library's high bandwidth
connection to do 50 minutes of websurfing about Lisp and Scheme jobs. I
started qualifying my searches with Seattle and I found... my own group,
SeaFunc. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SeaFunc Makes sense, as we merged /
co-scheduled with a local Lisp group recently. I used to be on the ML side
of things. I am happy to have achieved a sense of recursion in real life
that I've never achieved in code.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
> Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> > Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> >> The Seattle Public Library system http://www.spl.org has a pretty
> >> good array of technical books. Not so in the case of Lisp. All I
> >> can find are:
> > [...]
> >> If you're in a major metro area, I'm curious if your municipal
> >> library system has any better showing for Lisp? I would expect
> >> university libraries to fare much better. For instance, the U.
> >> Washington online catalog shows 76 entries for Lisp.
> >
> > Is that important? I wouldn't expect an ordinary library have any
> > useful books in CS. That's what universities are for. If a book is
> > really good, I usually buy it myself anyway.
>
> I think in a tech center like Seattle it is indeed important. The Seattle
> Public Library has a large sampling of technical books - obviously not
> uber-technical books like you'd find in a university research stack, but
> certainly, many bases are covered.
Sounds to me like you're looking in all the wrong places. For
technical subjects, you can hope the public library has what you want,
but you can't expect it to -- sometimes you just have to get books
from the UW on inter-library loan. And the UW lets the general public
into the library at all hours of day and night, so it's probably more
convenient to look there.
> My trip to Barnes & Noble yielded only 1 Lisp book on the shelf. "Lisp, 3rd
> Edition" by Winston & Horn, 1989. I probably read the 1st or 2nd edition as
> a senior in high school in 1988! Either that or I'm misremembering and read
> it on my own recognizance in the 1992..94 time period. Either way that's
> awhile ago.
Try the U Bookstore. In my experience it's always had a better
technical selection than B&N, and over the last couple years, at least
in the Bay Area, B&N seems to have had a constantly contracting
technical section. For Lisp in particular, the U Bookstore had a
pretty good selection 5 or 6 years ago (the last time I looked) --
that's where I bought my copy of On Lisp, when it was on a special
display as a recommended book.
Thomas F. Burdick wrote:
> "Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com>
> writes:
>>
>> I think in a tech center like Seattle it is indeed important. The
>> Seattle Public Library has a large sampling of technical books -
>> obviously not uber-technical books like you'd find in a university
>> research stack, but certainly, many bases are covered.
>
> Sounds to me like you're looking in all the wrong places.
No, I am not. If I didn't state my mission clearly enough in my 1st post,
it was to evaluate the degree to which Lisp books show up in commercial
bookstores and public libraries. (And to stretch my legs and avoid
signature gathering on a rainy / sleety afternoon.) I already knew the 3
Lisp books in the Seattle Public Library were probably completely useless
for learning Lisp, but I did hope that the 2001 book might at least be
interesting. Turned out that to me, it wasn't.
If I had actually wanted to find and purchase a Lisp book, I would still
have gone to Barnes & Noble first - and then struck out. Then I would have
gone to one of the University Bookstores, either the downtown or U. District
branch. I'll be swinging by the latter in a few days; we'll see what the
showing is like on those shelves.
> For
> technical subjects, you can hope the public library has what you want,
> but you can't expect it to --
In general this is false. As I mentioned in my original post, the Seattle
Public Library system has 7 Python books, 81 Java books, and 112 C# books.
*Obscure* technical subjects are what you can't find in the SPL, nor in the
commercial bookstores. For those you need either a university bookstore, a
research stack, or an internet order.
My point was to document the obscurity of Lisp in tangible terms, ask why it
is obscure, who cares, and who is doing anything about it.
> at least
> in the Bay Area, B&N seems to have had a constantly contracting
> technical section.
I've noticed the shrinkage as well, and I think it corresponds very exactly
to available floor space. The acid test of that theory would be the big B&N
in Bellevue, but I haven't been there lately. When floor space is at a
premium the marginal titles are squeezed out, leaving only the mainstream
big publisher contracted arrangements most likely. After all, everyone can
order things online if they really want them. But by this same token, the
commercial bookstore is a strong indicator of 'buzz' around a language. It
is damning to be beaten by Ruby. Heck, I saw a few titles on TCL/Tk and
nobody likes that anymore.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
Brandon's Law (after Godwin's Law):
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of
a person being called a troll approaches one RAPIDLY."
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> In general this is false. As I mentioned in my original post, the Seattle
> Public Library system has 7 Python books, 81 Java books, and 112 C# books.
Ouch, and C# is rather new, too. If you can make suggestions, make them
get at least the Practical Common Lisp when it comes out.
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
> the Seattle Public Library system has 7 Python books, 81 Java books,
> and 112 C# books.
That's because many of those books are donated either by patrons or
publishers perhaps subsidized to help stoke a particular marketing
fire. The patrons drop books off that they no longer need, either
because the books were outdated or no longer relevant to the owner's
endeavors. I know this because my local library system now has the
majority of my purchased technical books on its shelves. All the
Lisp-related ones are still safe at home.
--
Steven E. Harris
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
> The acid test of that theory would be the big B&N in Bellevue, but I
> haven't been there lately.
I'm quite sure I saw PAIP (Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence
Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp) there a few years ago.
Propably CLtL2 too, and possibly others, but I can't remember exactly.
I remember being impressed, because the selection was much, much
better than any bookstore in Sweden.
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
> My point was to document the obscurity of Lisp in tangible terms, ask why it
> is obscure, who cares, and who is doing anything about it.
One of the earliest and best known discussions of Lisp's obscurity is
this series of essays by Richard Gabriel:
Worse Is Better
http://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html
There are people who care and do something. It's just that what they
do may not be what you expect or think is useful.
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (see also http://clrfi.alu.org):
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
Paolo Amoroso wrote:
>
> Worse Is Better
> http://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html
It's a great analysis, but it frames all the problems in technical terms.
When Microsoft steamrollers everyone else in the industry, it's not doing it
with technology. 2/3 of the gameplan is marketing. The lessons of Redmond
are so obvious, I don't get why there are corners of the programming
universe that don't understand what's going on. Well, I suppose they
intellectually understand what's going on, that slick logos and nice
websites and brochures and sunshine pumped up the skirt are all valuable to
a certain class of technical consumer, but they find it distasteful and
don't wanna do it. Different aesthetics of power or something. A belief
that the world is, and by rights ought to be, pure code.
My point is, Lispers could wring their hands forever about "Worse Is
Better," and say, what's done is done. But that's bullshit. It's just
mental masturbation framed in the perfectionist's terms, the very terms that
formulate the notion of "Worse Is Better" in the first place.
> There are people who care and do something. It's just that what they
> do may not be what you expect or think is useful.
Labor in many directions is useful. But when there's a great lack of labor
in a particular direction, such as marketing, I note the weakness of the
strategy. That is to say, there is no strategy, only techie diffusion.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
When no one else sells courage, supply and demand take hold.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Paolo Amoroso wrote:
>
>> Worse Is Better
>> http://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html
>
>
> It's a great analysis, but it frames all the problems in technical terms.
> When Microsoft steamrollers everyone else in the industry, it's not doing it
> with technology. 2/3 of the gameplan is marketing. The lessons of Redmond
I'm minoring in Marketing and I believe it's about producing stuff (or
services) that people and companies want. It's not just advertising,
but organizing your whole company with respect to the customer.
What MS is doing is the opposite: not producing what people want, but
making people buy what they produce (which is how companies operated in
the old days). They're even very successful with that. But still noone
really likes them (I don't know about their big customers).
What Lisp needs is not more advertising, but more toolkits that people
want to use. Maybe something like an extension to the standard (or like
the SRFIs) for common application domains.
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> ...
> What MS is doing is the opposite: not producing what people want, but
> making people buy what they produce (which is how companies operated in
> the old days). They're even very successful with that. But still noone
> really likes them (I don't know about their big customers).
that depends on whom they market to. IMO their main market is system
builders like Dell etc. who then turn around and tell their customers
that windows is the only choice
> ...
hs
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Labor in many directions is useful. But when there's a great lack of labor
> in a particular direction, such as marketing, I note the weakness of the
> strategy. That is to say, there is no strategy, only techie diffusion.
Which of your past endeavours have been so successful that it becomes so
suggestive to copy your strategy?
Pascal
Pascal Costanza wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
>> Labor in many directions is useful. But when there's a great lack
>> of labor in a particular direction, such as marketing, I note the
>> weakness of the strategy. That is to say, there is no strategy,
>> only techie diffusion.
>
> Which of your past endeavours have been so successful that it becomes
> so suggestive to copy your strategy?
It's not my strategy. It's Microsoft's strategy.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
When no one else sells courage, supply and demand take hold.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>
>>Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Labor in many directions is useful. But when there's a great lack
>>>of labor in a particular direction, such as marketing, I note the
>>>weakness of the strategy. That is to say, there is no strategy,
>>>only techie diffusion.
>>
>>Which of your past endeavours have been so successful that it becomes
>>so suggestive to copy your strategy?
>
> It's not my strategy. It's Microsoft's strategy.
For which of your past endeavours have you copied that strategy in such
a successful way that it should become so suggestive to anyone else to
copy it as well?
Pascal
Pascal Costanza wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>>
>>> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Labor in many directions is useful. But when there's a great lack
>>>> of labor in a particular direction, such as marketing, I note the
>>>> weakness of the strategy. That is to say, there is no strategy,
>>>> only techie diffusion.
>>>
>>> Which of your past endeavours have been so successful that it
>>> becomes so suggestive to copy your strategy?
>>
>> It's not my strategy. It's Microsoft's strategy.
>
> For which of your past endeavours have you copied that strategy in
> such a successful way that it should become so suggestive to anyone
> else to copy it as well?
Why do you need to copy me? Shouldn't you copy Microsoft? Or find fault
with Microsoft, that they don't do a good job at 'success' ? Or have a
totally different bar of 'success' than you do?
This thread started with how few Lisp books are in evidence out there. No,
I haven't published a bunch of books on the shelves of Barnes & Noble, if
that's the sort of answer you're looking for.
But I know you are not looking for answers. You are saying, "Everything is
fine here. Who are you to question? Why should we even pay attention to
you?"
I don't know if the mood of the Lisp community is happiness because
everything really is just peachy for you, couldn't possibly enjoy those high
flying big money problems better... or jadedness because you've heard it all
before and have decided it's hopeless. Or somewhere between. I know people
don't like to have their noses rubbed in a bad situation, if indeed it is a
bad situation.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>
>>Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>
>>>Pascal Costanza wrote:
>>>
>>>>Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Labor in many directions is useful. But when there's a great lack
>>>>>of labor in a particular direction, such as marketing, I note the
>>>>>weakness of the strategy. That is to say, there is no strategy,
>>>>>only techie diffusion.
>>>>
>>>>Which of your past endeavours have been so successful that it
>>>>becomes so suggestive to copy your strategy?
>>>
>>>It's not my strategy. It's Microsoft's strategy.
>>
>>For which of your past endeavours have you copied that strategy in
>>such a successful way that it should become so suggestive to anyone
>>else to copy it as well?
>
> Why do you need to copy me? Shouldn't you copy Microsoft? Or find fault
> with Microsoft, that they don't do a good job at 'success' ? Or have a
> totally different bar of 'success' than you do?
I don't care about Microsoft, so why should I ask myself these
questions? You are the one to suggest to copy their strategy, without
giving any evidence that copying their strategy would get us anywhere.
> This thread started with how few Lisp books are in evidence out there. No,
> I haven't published a bunch of books on the shelves of Barnes & Noble, if
> that's the sort of answer you're looking for.
So what did you do that makes you so sure about copying someone else's
strategy is a good idea?
> But I know you are not looking for answers. You are saying, "Everything is
> fine here. Who are you to question? Why should we even pay attention to
> you?"
Yes, the Common Lisp community is doing pretty fine at the moment. You
are not paying attention to what is actually happening over here.
Pascal
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
> When Microsoft steamrollers everyone else in the industry, it's not doing it
> with technology. 2/3 of the gameplan is marketing. The lessons of Redmond
Okay, here's a deal: you give us 10% of Microsoft's marketing budget,
and we produce nice commercials, slick logos, brochures, coffee mugs,
cool t-shirts, shiny ads on glossy paper magazines, all sorts of
gadgets, you name it.
In the meantime, here is my marketing: Lisp is back.
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (see also http://clrfi.alu.org):
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
Paolo Amoroso wrote:
>
> Okay, here's a deal: you give us 10% of Microsoft's marketing budget,
> and we produce nice commercials, slick logos, brochures, coffee mugs,
> cool t-shirts, shiny ads on glossy paper magazines, all sorts of
> gadgets, you name it.
>
> In the meantime, here is my marketing: Lisp is back.
You're going to tell that to people in comp.lang.lisp?
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
> Paolo Amoroso wrote:
[...]
>> In the meantime, here is my marketing: Lisp is back.
>
> You're going to tell that to people in comp.lang.lisp?
I have already done it in the past.
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (see also http://clrfi.alu.org):
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
Brandon J. Van Every schrieb:
> In general this is false. As I mentioned in my original post, the Seattle
> Public Library system has 7 Python books, 81 Java books, and 112 C# books.
> *Obscure* technical subjects are what you can't find in the SPL, nor in the
> commercial bookstores. For those you need either a university bookstore, a
> research stack, or an internet order.
>
> My point was to document the obscurity of Lisp in tangible terms, ask why it
> is obscure, who cares, and who is doing anything about it.
The library probably also has more books about driving cars than about
flying passenger airplanes. That proves?
Lisp is obscure. Because it doesn't prominently promise to solve easy
problems easily and most problems that are actually attacked by
companies are easy (as in easy to find literature about them).
I don't care, you seem to do.
Who should be interested in doing anything about it? And why?
Patrick Frankenberger wrote:
>
> Lisp is obscure. Because it doesn't prominently promise to solve easy
> problems easily and most problems that are actually attacked by
> companies are easy (as in easy to find literature about them).
> I don't care, you seem to do.
>
> Who should be interested in doing anything about it? And why?
Ok, at what point will "dumb languages" be able to tackle things that only
"smart languages" currently can? Can a dumb language + 200 coder monkeys be
cheaper than Lisp + 2 uberhackers?
Many of the other aspects of computerdom have succumbed to commodification.
The very act of programming itself seems poised to do so, with all the
Indian, Chinese, Russian, and Eastern European labor running about.
Companies that didn't wish to see commodification coming, that resisted it
out of arrogance and desire to retain high margins and high brow, have
ultimately fallen. The example most clear in my mind is SGI.
I imagine there will always be problems that require a handful of smart
people to solve, due to their inherent difficulty. However, I equally
imagine many classes of problems that will somewhat succumb to
commodification. This will nip away at the 'indispensibility' of Lisp.
Enough nips and few people are interested in Lisp as a language to solve
problems in. Then the downward spiral of decreasing support occurs.
Given the sloth of the computer industry I'd put such a gloom-and-doom
scenario10..20 years into the future. But indeed it could happen. I
suppose you could choose to care about the here and now, and worry about 10
years later 10 years from now.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Brandon J. Van Every schrieb:
> Patrick Frankenberger wrote:
>
>>Lisp is obscure. Because it doesn't prominently promise to solve easy
>>problems easily and most problems that are actually attacked by
>>companies are easy (as in easy to find literature about them).
>>I don't care, you seem to do.
>>
>>Who should be interested in doing anything about it? And why?
>
> I imagine there will always be problems that require a handful of smart
> people to solve, due to their inherent difficulty. However, I equally
> imagine many classes of problems that will somewhat succumb to
> commodification. This will nip away at the 'indispensibility' of Lisp.
> Enough nips and few people are interested in Lisp as a language to solve
> problems in. Then the downward spiral of decreasing support occurs.
Lisp is especially interesting to those wanting to solve hard problems
or troll in discussions. I can't imagine where you can get (for free)
lots of people who code lispcode that implements already known solutions
to make lisp attractive to "codemonkeys".
People who want to solve yet unsolved problems with lisp won't stop
doing so to make lisp attractive to "codemonkeys". People reimplementing
known solutions don't use lisp (because "it doesn't offer lots of
libraries and is fragmented").
That said, i don't believe it is a problem. I don't fear a shortage of
unsolved problems in the next 50 years. If there is one i am happy to be
able witness it.
> Given the sloth of the computer industry I'd put such a gloom-and-doom
> scenario10..20 years into the future. But indeed it could happen. I
> suppose you could choose to care about the here and now, and worry about 10
> years later 10 years from now.
I don't see a downward spiral anywhere in the lisp community. In fact it
seems more alive than some time ago.
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
> So, the main value of my trip was getting some nice exercise walking
> downtown, and blowing off signature gathering on a freezing rain / sleeting
> afternoon. Oh, and I took advantage of the library's high bandwidth
> connection to do 50 minutes of websurfing about Lisp and Scheme jobs. I
> started qualifying my searches with Seattle and I found... my own group,
Some more Googling, possibly at your home, might have turned out these
fresh Lisp books, both also available online:
Successful Lisp: How to Understand and Use Common Lisp
http://psg.com/~dlamkins/sl/cover.html
Practical Common Lisp
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
and this upcoming one:
The ANSI Common Lisp Reference Book
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=263
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (see also http://clrfi.alu.org):
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
Paolo Amoroso wrote:
>
> Some more Googling, possibly at your home, might have turned out these
> fresh Lisp books, both also available online:
Thanks again!
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:16:10 -0800, "Brandon J. Van Every"
<·····························@yahoo.com> wrote:
>If you're in a major metro area, I'm curious if your municipal library
>system has any better showing for Lisp? I would expect university libraries
>to fare much better. For instance, the U. Washington online catalog shows
>76 entries for Lisp.
>
For Austin, TX, I find four entries:
https://library.ci.austin.tx.us/web2/tramp2.exe/authority_hits/A2t2ii5l.001?server=1home&item=1
The little LISPer
Writing GNU Emacs extensions
Artificial intelligence and the design of expert systems
AutoLISP to Visual LISP : design solutions for AutoCAD
Not very good, but about what I'd expect. When I look for Ruby, I find
nothing - should I assume it is useless? I don't think so.
If your point is that Lisp isn't mainstream, no kidding. If you want
mainstream, you'd probably have to go with Java/C++/C/Perl. Oh, and I
suppose COBOL, in some contexts.
--
adamnospamaustin.rr.com
s/nospam/c\./
Adam Connor wrote:
>
> Not very good, but about what I'd expect. When I look for Ruby, I find
> nothing - should I assume it is useless? I don't think so.
The Seattle Public Library has 1 title for Ruby, c. 2001. Multiple Ruby
titles are in evidence on Barnes & Noble and Borders bookshelves. The
implication is that your Austin library system is understocked, or that Ruby
is not considered as regionally useful / chic as it is in Seattle. I
strongly suspect the former.
> If your point is that Lisp isn't mainstream, no kidding. If you want
> mainstream, you'd probably have to go with Java/C++/C/Perl. Oh, and I
> suppose COBOL, in some contexts.
My implication is that Lisp's showing in commercial bookstores is abysmal,
and the public libraries in "technical cities" reflect this. Apparently,
Lisp has zero buzz whatsoever, to be beaten by Ruby! You guys playing the
Yahoo! Buzz game are so dead.
So here's the statement of fact: industry doesn't care about Lisp. Not even
to the degree that they care about Ruby, which is pathetic. What does this
say about Lisp marketing? Lisp markets? Are they all vertical markets? Is
none of this really about languages, but about the web and the dot.com boom?
Whatever you can cobble a webserver together with? Is hackerdom a zero sum
game? Have all the other scripting languages sucked the brain cells out of
any hackers who might have ventured into Lisp territory? Does anybody here
care? Does anybody here do anything to change the status quo?
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"witch-hunt" - (noun) (Date: 1885)
1: a searching out for persecution of persons accused
of witchcraft
2: the searching out and deliberate harassment of
those (as political opponents) with unpopular views
- witch-hunter (noun)
- witch-hunting (noun or adjective)
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Does anybody here care? Does anybody here do anything to change
> the status quo?
As a Lisp-using hacker once wrote:
"So I say 'used to care', and you're wondering what changed. Simply, I
realised that no matter how much time, effort, work or money is
plunged into free software (in fairness, this is unlikely to be unique
to Lisp) the response from this 'new user' market is always going to
be 'Sucks. Is there even any desire on anyone's part to improve the
situation?'. Anything you did more than three weeks ago when they
started looking at lisp is taken for granted, assumed to be provided
by some capricious god in Days of Old and now just part of the natural
state of things."
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/f5f837f781a007bb
As I pointed out before, there are highly effective people at work on
your problem, most of whose names I likely don't know.
If you wanna change the mainstream (an activist stance), some
successful activists spill all their "secrets":
http://www.lehetmasavilag.hu/chomsky.html
But keep in mind our culture is all about having shit the moment you
want it. Despite the fact that anything important, from civil rights to
democracy, were won by people who didn't see success within their
lifetimes. Now, getting a tool accepted is possibly an easier
proposition... And the funny thing is, internet pre-2005 was full of
the most pathetic lies about Common Lisp, like there were no arrays or
iteration. Now change has occurred, and the criticisms have (I think)
become more intelligent.
> So here's the statement of fact: industry doesn't care about Lisp.
The music industry doesn't give a fuck about artists either, as Chuck D
explains: "the industry over the past fifty to sixty years has been
Accountant and Lawyer driven and it hasn't been about the artistry."
http://www.rapstation.com/promo/lars_vs_chuckd.html
Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>> Does anybody here care? Does anybody here do anything to change
>> the status quo?
>
> As I pointed out before, there are highly effective people at work on
> your problem, most of whose names I likely don't know.
How many of these are marketers as opposed to programmers? Or at least put
the marketing hat on?
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
On Usenet, if you're not an open source hippie who
likes to download and play with programming toys
all day long, there's something wrong with you.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
>
>>Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>
>>>Does anybody here care? Does anybody here do anything to change
>>>the status quo?
>>
>>As I pointed out before, there are highly effective people at work on
>>your problem, most of whose names I likely don't know.
>
> How many of these are marketers as opposed to programmers? Or at least put
> the marketing hat on?
Do you have any remote idea how insulting you sound?
Pascal
Pascal Costanza wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>> Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
>>
>>> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does anybody here care? Does anybody here do anything to change
>>>> the status quo?
>>>
>>> As I pointed out before, there are highly effective people at work
>>> on your problem, most of whose names I likely don't know.
>>
>> How many of these are marketers as opposed to programmers? Or at
>> least put the marketing hat on?
>
> Do you have any remote idea how insulting you sound?
No I don't, seeing as how it's an objective, value neutral question. I'm
starting to pick you for a Feeler in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators
(MBTI). Easily insulted. But then I would say that, being a Thinker. More
info about MBTI at http://www.humanmetrics.com
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>
>>Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>
>>>Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Does anybody here care? Does anybody here do anything to change
>>>>>the status quo?
>>>>
>>>>As I pointed out before, there are highly effective people at work
>>>>on your problem, most of whose names I likely don't know.
>>>
>>>How many of these are marketers as opposed to programmers? Or at
>>>least put the marketing hat on?
>>
>>Do you have any remote idea how insulting you sound?
>
> No I don't, seeing as how it's an objective, value neutral question. I'm
> starting to pick you for a Feeler in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators
> (MBTI). Easily insulted.
I am not insulted. I know the Myers-Briggs stuff.
Pascal
P.S.: It seems to me that you're not too good at marketing as well. To
quote from you website at http://www.indiegamedesign.com/:
"Technical difficulties. Please check back in a few days.
- Brandon Van Every, March 30, 2004"
Pascal Costanza wrote:
>
> P.S.: It seems to me that you're not too good at marketing as well. To
> quote from you website at http://www.indiegamedesign.com/:
>
> "Technical difficulties. Please check back in a few days.
>
> - Brandon Van Every, March 30, 2004"
Yes, that's my personal joke. I have thought of replacing it with "I am not
now, nor have I ever been, a Web Designer," but I can't be arsed to deal
with FrontPage 2000. Anyone want to recommend a Lisp or Scheme based bloggy
sort of thing that would run on an ordinary web domain account and somehow
alleviate me from having to do any web design?
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
- Ed McKenzie
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Yes, that's my personal joke. I have thought of replacing it with "I am not
> now, nor have I ever been, a Web Designer," but I can't be arsed to deal
> with FrontPage 2000. Anyone want to recommend a Lisp or Scheme based bloggy
> sort of thing that would run on an ordinary web domain account and somehow
> alleviate me from having to do any web design?
>
You can always just put content there, without great formatting.
So I guess you don't want to :)
Ulrich Hobelmann <···········@web.de> writes:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>> Yes, that's my personal joke. I have thought of replacing it with "I am not
>> now, nor have I ever been, a Web Designer," but I can't be arsed to deal
>> with FrontPage 2000. Anyone want to recommend a Lisp or Scheme based bloggy
>> sort of thing that would run on an ordinary web domain account and somehow
>> alleviate me from having to do any web design?
>>
>
> You can always just put content there, without great formatting.
> So I guess you don't want to :)
No, that wouldn't work. That would not be marketing!
It is all about glitzy formatting an not content.
'Andreas
--
Wherever I lay my .emacs, there's my $HOME.
On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 03:04:39 -0800, "Brandon J. Van Every"
<·····························@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Yes, that's my personal joke. I have thought of replacing it with "I am not
>now, nor have I ever been, a Web Designer," but I can't be arsed to deal
>with FrontPage 2000. Anyone want to recommend a Lisp or Scheme based bloggy
>sort of thing that would run on an ordinary web domain account and somehow
>alleviate me from having to do any web design?
I dunno about Lisp or Scheme, the web market is more Perl/PHP/Java;
there are zillions of blogging tools, like worpad, movable type, etc.
Some places will even install them for you. But how hard is it to edit
an html page from time to time?
--
adamnospamaustin.rr.com
s/nospam/c\./
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>>
>> P.S.: It seems to me that you're not too good at marketing as well.
>> To quote from you website at http://www.indiegamedesign.com/:
>>
>> "Technical difficulties. Please check back in a few days.
>>
>> - Brandon Van Every, March 30, 2004"
>
> Yes, that's my personal joke. I have thought of replacing it with "I
> am not now, nor have I ever been, a Web Designer," but I can't be
> arsed to deal
> with FrontPage 2000. Anyone want to recommend a Lisp or Scheme based
> bloggy sort of thing that would run on an ordinary web domain account
> and somehow alleviate me from having to do any web design?
>
ookay. Web pages without any design and
David Golden wrote:
Huh. Premature e-posting. Terrible and embarrassing affliction:
> ookay. Web pages without any design and
programming without any design are both... messy (not that I regard
messy as bad, necessarily).
Minimising (as opposed to eliminating) onerous design work is a
worthwhile goal I guess, hence the fondness for "bottom up design" in
Lisp. But what does a "bottom up designed" web page look like?
Timecube? or are there better examples? is a wiki bottom up designed
nondesigned or just a big mess? :-)
On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 22:42:03 -0800, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
>> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>> Does anybody here care? Does anybody here do anything to change
>>> the status quo?
>>
>> As I pointed out before, there are highly effective people at work on
>> your problem, most of whose names I likely don't know.
>
> How many of these are marketers as opposed to programmers? Or at least put
> the marketing hat on?
I sure hope and pray that all of them _are_ programmers. Whenever i had
marketers try to "solve" the tech. problems i presented to them the cure
was almost inevitably declaring the problem "not to exist" ....
BTW, i just came back after a week off the net and read up on c.l.l -
are you aware of the fact that quite a few of your recent posts might be
taken as, erm, rather insulting?
cheers Ralf Mattes
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
> So here's the statement of fact: industry doesn't care about Lisp.
> Not even to the degree that they care about Ruby, which is pathetic.
> What does this say about Lisp marketing?
One advantage Ruby has here is that most people will never have heard
of it. It's easy to find programmers, or even people who just know
programmers, who have never used but will deride Lisp with glee. When
I mention to colleagues that I use Lisp, they smile quizzically and
say, "Really? Lisp? Isn't that the old thing with parentheses?" I'd
get the same reaction if I announced that I rode to work on
horse-drawn carriage.
Mention something like Ruby to the uninitiated, though, and the
reaction is different: "Wow, sounds like something new to play with
and stick on my resume. Maybe I'll be the first."
--
Steven E. Harris
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
> So here's the statement of fact: industry doesn't care about Lisp. Not even
> to the degree that they care about Ruby, which is pathetic. What does this
> say about Lisp marketing? Lisp markets? Are they all vertical markets? Is
> none of this really about languages, but about the web and the dot.com boom?
> Whatever you can cobble a webserver together with? Is hackerdom a zero sum
> game? Have all the other scripting languages sucked the brain cells out of
> any hackers who might have ventured into Lisp territory? Does anybody here
> care? Does anybody here do anything to change the status quo?
Lispers do care, but this probably doesn't qualify. As for doing
anything, here are a few things we do:
- use Lisp
- write new Lisp tools and libraries
- write Lisp books
- organize informal meetings
- help beginners who are really interested in learning Lisp
Again, I'm not sure this qualifies as glamorous marketing. But you
have given a hint at the main problem in your article
<···············@individual.net>:
I'm not volunteering, but I'm observing: a FAQ that's been updated
sometime since 1997 would probably help the cause of Lisp.
We get plenty of people eager to patronize on what we do wrong and
explain why Lisp is unpopular. But few are willing to put their money
where their mouth is.
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (see also http://clrfi.alu.org):
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
Paolo Amoroso wrote:
>
> We get plenty of people eager to patronize on what we do wrong and
> explain why Lisp is unpopular. But few are willing to put their money
> where their mouth is.
I'm not about to do anything to volunteer for Lisp at this point. I just
showed up, and I may not be staying! I've also been through these
'marketing drills' before in the Python and OCaml communities, where I did
make efforts. They were fruitless. In the Python case, a "will to market"
existed in some quarters, but it was all Dilberted by Guido and the PSF. In
the OCaml case, no will existed, and I finally came to realize how jaded
techies really are to marketing issues. So I do not automatically step up
to the plate to try anymore. Especially since the Python community is much
farther along than the Lisp community in terms of notoriety, and is still
largely hostile to marketing. I believe languages probably have linear
stages of evolution to go through. Although Lisp, being as venerable as it
is, probably has gone in loops. Or possibly is at the "burnout" end of the
cycle.
What I would like to hear about, is if any of you Lispers have lately
convened a group of people for the purpose of marketing Lisp. Like, a
marketing mailing list, open to interested parties. If so, I'll peruse your
archives for my historical edification. If not, I have no interest in
starting one. It's something your bigwigs should do if they have any actual
gumption.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
When no one else sells courage, supply and demand take hold.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> I'm not about to do anything to volunteer for Lisp at this point. I
just
> showed up, and I may not be staying! I've also been through these
> 'marketing drills' before in the Python and OCaml communities, where
I did
> make efforts. They were fruitless.
How's Free3d coming along?
-dan
···@telent.net wrote:
>
> How's Free3d coming along?
What do you mean? I quit development on that in 1996.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
On Usenet, if you're not an open source hippie who
likes to download and play with programming toys
all day long, there's something wrong with you.
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
>> How's Free3d coming along?
>
> What do you mean? I quit development on that in 1996.
Every community I've seen you involved with in the past or about which
you've related stories in this thread has involved your making demands
on others' time and yet failing to produce anything worthwhile, before
becoming dissatisfied and taking your toys away.
If the price of your getting bored and going elsewhere is that Lisp
gets the visibility and brand recognition of Linux or Python, I for
one am prepared to pay it.
-dan
Daniel Barlow wrote:
> "Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com>
> writes:
>
>>> How's Free3d coming along?
>>
>> What do you mean? I quit development on that in 1996.
>
> Every community I've seen you involved with in the past or about which
> you've related stories in this thread has involved your making demands
> on others' time
Quote me where, in the past week, I've demanded anything of anyone's time.
Asking simple informational questions, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't
count. I don't subscribe to RTFM curmudgeonry, as I do in fact read a lot
of FM, and Google archives a ton, and websurf, and otherwise get up to my
eyeballs in countless reams of useless bits and bytes. Nobody actually
trying to get things done can afford to do that all day long, and I do way
too much of it as it is. If I ask a question, I've never demanded that you
provide me an answer; it is yours to bestow as the energy moves you.
> and yet failing to produce anything worthwhile, before
> becoming dissatisfied and taking your toys away.
Two way street. What has Python or OCaml done for me? Nothing. They have
solved *not one* of my problems: 3D, AI, $$$$$. What did I do for them?
Provided Python with cheesy logos that galvanized other artists to do
better, started ocaml-games list, precipitated ocaml-biz list, tried to get
OCaml guys to do marketing, started OCaml Seattle SIG, which became ML SIG,
which merged with Seattle Lispers to become SeaFunc. My cohorts are
becoming the nucleus of "esoteric language" interest in this region. I
don't need you to tell me what I have or haven't done. It's very clear what
you value: code. There's this glaring, shit problem staring you all in the
face that Lisp is less popular than TCL/Tk, and you think the answer is
"Well where's your code?"
People like you will *never* pose a threat to Microsoft. You cheat yourself
of all the available tools. But of course, people like you are generally
satisfied with your own show, so no problemo.
> If the price of your getting bored and going elsewhere is that Lisp
> gets the visibility and brand recognition of Linux or Python, I for
> one am prepared to pay it.
On what planet are you possibly dreaming that Lisp is headed for the
visibility and brand recognition of Linux or Python? What road map are you
looking at?
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Pascal Costanza wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
>> People like you will *never* pose a threat to Microsoft.
>
> Who cares about Microsoft. They're not important.
I must admit, I always envy people who are so satisfied with their own
technical situation. There's this air of imperviousness and invulnerability
about them. Myself, I've seen all my marketable skills slide away into the
abyss of technical churn. Not important? Oh yes, the juggernaut of
Microsoft is *very* important...
You may say, get away from the churning tech then. Just do some Lisp and be
happy. Well, where are the 3D graphics engines to be happy with? OpenGL
isn't keeping up with DirectX, and it's Microsoft + the 3D IHVs that are
always churning things forwards. Ok, you say buy those capabilities off the
shelf, save the stuff you can control for Lisp. Well, where are the ways of
binding the off the shelf stuff to the Lisp stuff? It all becomes pain and
churn. An exceedingly popular open source console would be great, but it
doesn't exist yet. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo will do their utmost to
ensure it doesn't.
You may say, get away from 3D then. I may indeed do just that. Wait
another 20 years until the issue is so moot, and even Microsoft has truly
lost its relevance, that we're simply worrying about Bigger Things. But I
see all those unborn 3D games between now and then.
You may say, buy an army of Indian / Chinese / Russian / Eastern European
programmers to handle the gruntwork. Indeed, after shipping a 1st title and
building up a war chest, that's a good plan. I wonder how well Lisp will
compete against hordes of cheap labor in the coming global high tech
economy?
Yes, lots of things are important. But I suppose a techie who simply loves
playing with his tools, whatever they may be, feels no pain.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>
>>Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>
>>>People like you will *never* pose a threat to Microsoft.
>>
>>Who cares about Microsoft. They're not important.
>
> I must admit, I always envy people who are so satisfied with their own
> technical situation.
You have repeatedly stated very clearly that you are not willing to
either invest money or to invest time to get your problems fixed. It's
no wonder that you are dissatisfied with your situation.
Pascal
Pascal Costanza wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>>
>>> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>>
>>>> People like you will *never* pose a threat to Microsoft.
>>>
>>> Who cares about Microsoft. They're not important.
>>
>> I must admit, I always envy people who are so satisfied with their
>> own technical situation.
>
> You have repeatedly stated very clearly that you are not willing to
> either invest money or to invest time to get your problems fixed. It's
> no wonder that you are dissatisfied with your situation.
I've invested ridiculous amounts of money and time. You can try to keep
turning this into something about me, but the ailments of Lisp will still be
here when I'm gone.
What I have said before is, essentially, that statements like "Microsoft is
irrelevant" are foolish. Microsoft has this nasty tendency to reverberate
throughout techiedom. The good news is that for a UNIX techie, probably
there are long time gaps between the reverberations. I definitely do
believe in achieving distance from Microsoft, but I am not so foolish as to
think that by gaining ground, I have banished them from relevance.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> You can try to keep turning this into something about me, but the
> ailments of Lisp will still be here when I'm gone.
When will that be?
Pascal
Pascal Costanza wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
>> You can try to keep turning this into something about me, but the
>> ailments of Lisp will still be here when I'm gone.
>
> When will that be?
This has been quite a binge, something I'm prone to do on occasion.
Sometimes I just feel like beating a dead horse about the old marketing
thing, even though I know there are almost no techies who care. Is it some
kind of dysfunctional optimism, that maybe, just maybe, there's 1 techie who
cares? At any rate I've invested way too much time in it, which means I'm
avoiding something else I'm supposed to be doing. So I'm going to get back
to whatever that is.
My current guinea pig is Bigloo Scheme, so I will let that occupy me for
awhile, rather than comp.lang.lisp.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"The pioneer is the one with the arrows in his back."
- anonymous entrepreneur
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> wrote
[...]
> I wonder how well Lisp will
> compete against hordes of cheap labor in the coming global high tech
> economy?
Bwahahahah! If they have the same talk to work ratio efficiency than you
have then we are really safe!
As for the hordes of chip labor have a look at this:
http://www.futureofinnovation.org/PDF/Benchmarks.pdf
(Supported by Intel, M$, HP, TI, etc...)
Marc
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> What I would like to hear about, is if any of you Lispers have lately
> convened a group of people for the purpose of marketing Lisp.
I think I have something for you:
P.O.L.E.: Pill for Obsessive Lisp Enlightement.
Taking two POLEs rectally a day (one in the morning, one in the
evening) over a period of 3 months will provide you an exclusive
and unique spiritual enlightement*. You'll find pleasantly clear
answers to all the questions you ever had about Lisp.
* Works even for people exposed to overdosis of pestilent *
* material like XML. *
100g for 21.49$ only!**
You'll never get such a comparable bargain again!
Better get it before your competitor will!
It's only a question of time!
* Known side effects include an inexplicable (research is going on)
disdain up to a nauseating disgust of any programming language with
a low percentage on parentheses; on rare cases, a parenthonose
(parenthetical addiction) has been observed.
** No guarantee. No payback warranties.
[Now that I (under risk of my life!) have brought this secret from the
institute of Black Helicopters Inc. --- right, the underground
departement for Lisp mass marketing, conspiracy theories and world
domination --- and as I'm going to get on the Black List anyway as
soon as Kenny the Tilt will read this post, I can report you the most
recent plan of R&D on this product, too: It's attempted to concentrate
the dense and effect of the pills to shrink the critical absorption
mass in such a way that a distribution through the ventilation shafts
of all major software houses will be possible. But better tell nobody!]
On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 01:53:12 -0800, "Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm not about to do anything to volunteer for Lisp at this point. I
> just showed up, and I may not be staying!
So there's still hope...
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi Weitz wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 01:53:12 -0800, "Brandon J. Van Every"
> <·····························@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm not about to do anything to volunteer for Lisp at this point. I
>> just showed up, and I may not be staying!
>
> So there's still hope...
Sure... if you think anything about Lisp remotely hangs on me.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com> writes:
> I'm not about to do anything to volunteer for Lisp at this point. I just
> showed up, and I may not be staying! I've also been through these
> 'marketing drills' before in the Python and OCaml communities, where I did
> make efforts. They were fruitless. In the Python case, a "will to market"
> existed in some quarters, but it was all Dilberted by Guido and the PSF. In
> the OCaml case, no will existed, and I finally came to realize how jaded
> techies really are to marketing issues. So I do not automatically step up
> to the plate to try anymore. Especially since the Python community is much
> farther along than the Lisp community in terms of notoriety, and is still
> largely hostile to marketing. I believe languages probably have linear
Does this mean that marketing was not that important for Python's success?
> stages of evolution to go through. Although Lisp, being as venerable as it
> is, probably has gone in loops. Or possibly is at the "burnout" end of the
> cycle.
Maybe. But Lisp is possibly the most actively bashed language in the
history of computing, yet people keep coming to it.
> What I would like to hear about, is if any of you Lispers have lately
> convened a group of people for the purpose of marketing Lisp. Like, a
Many groups of Lispers have convened lately, but I'm afraid not for
plotting grand marketing plans, just for mundane hacker stuff like
discussing code and tools. The Marketing Department of Lisp,
Inc. tells us that people keep complaining because there are not
enough libraries.
> marketing mailing list, open to interested parties. If so, I'll peruse your
> archives for my historical edification. If not, I have no interest in
> starting one. It's something your bigwigs should do if they have any actual
> gumption.
I personally think that doing actual work, such as writing code and
books, is more productive.
Paolo
--
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (see also http://clrfi.alu.org):
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
Paolo Amoroso wrote:
> "Brandon J. Van Every" <·····························@yahoo.com>
> writes:
>
>> Especially since the Python community is much farther
>> along than the Lisp community in terms of notoriety, and is still
>> largely hostile to marketing. I believe languages probably have
>> linear
>
> Does this mean that marketing was not that important for Python's
> success?
I would say that the only outfit that has done any Python marketing is
O'Reilly. You say Python is a 'success.' I say it is damn hard to get a
Python job in the Seattle Metro Area. Calling Python a 'success' compared
to C++, Java, and C# is like calling Macs a 'success' compared to the
Windows PC. Extant, sustainable, but peripheral.
Meanwhile, Lisp is not remotely near Python's level of success. Over the
past 10 years, Python grew, Lisp shrank. How much of that is technology and
how much is marketing?
>> stages of evolution to go through. Although Lisp, being as
>> venerable as it is, probably has gone in loops. Or possibly is at
>> the "burnout" end of the cycle.
>
> Maybe. But Lisp is possibly the most actively bashed language in the
> history of computing, yet people keep coming to it.
The overall rate of growth or flight is more important than whether 1 person
shows up every now and again. The growth of Lisp vs. Ruby would be
instructive, as both have small followings.
>> What I would like to hear about, is if any of you Lispers have lately
>> convened a group of people for the purpose of marketing Lisp. Like,
>> a
>
> Many groups of Lispers have convened lately, but I'm afraid not for
> plotting grand marketing plans, just for mundane hacker stuff like
> discussing code and tools. The Marketing Department of Lisp,
> Inc. tells us that people keep complaining because there are not
> enough libraries.
So I suppose that rather than develop a marketing plan to address some
perceived need of Decisionmakers, you just take techies at their word, and
work on "lotsa libraries" in a diffuse manner, according to your personal
whims. I do believe that "slow open source diffusion" is the only thing
techies know how to do. This goes on for many many years, until either a
critical mass is reached or the language dies.
Once the critical mass is finally reached, I think growth depends upon the
ability of the language community to change / reinvent / renew / extend its
culture. When there's already enough tech on the table, marketing is what
needs to be added. I feel Python is at this stage now. I feel Python could
also squander its technical assets for years and years and years.
>> marketing mailing list, open to interested parties. If so, I'll
>> peruse your archives for my historical edification. If not, I have
>> no interest in starting one. It's something your bigwigs should do
>> if they have any actual gumption.
>
> I personally think that doing actual work, such as writing code and
> books, is more productive.
Right, same as you and all the other techies that can't market their way out
of a paper bag. I cut commercial teeth at DEC. Great engineering company.
Couldn't market its way out of a paper bag. It's too bad more people can't
figure out how to use Microsoft's tools to their advantage. We'd be less
cursed with the good techs always losing.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
On Usenet, if you're not an open source hippie who
likes to download and play with programming toys
all day long, there's something wrong with you.
On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 19:09:41 -0800, "Brandon J. Van Every"
<·····························@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Adam Connor wrote:
>My implication is that Lisp's showing in commercial bookstores is abysmal,
>and the public libraries in "technical cities" reflect this. Apparently,
>Lisp has zero buzz whatsoever, to be beaten by Ruby! You guys playing the
>Yahoo! Buzz game are so dead.
I've bought Lisp books in commercial bookstores in Austin. But my
impression is that _all_ technical books are getting harder to find in
bricks-and-mortar stores; the ones around here have reduced the size
of their technical books sections. My hypothesis is that internet
sales have had a big effect here, probably because the books are
relatively expensive. Naturally, when a section shrinks, the least
popular languages are hurt the most.
None of which is news. The question isn't whether Lisp is currently
popular -- we all know the answer to that question. The question is
whether it is growing. I see some reasons to hope, but it certainly
isn't a guaranteed thing. So if having a popular language (along with
its network effects) is important to you, use Java/C/C++/Perl.
If you want to market Lisp, "just do it", don't pester comp.lang.lisp
about not being marketers.
--
adamnospamaustin.rr.com
s/nospam/c\./
Adam Connor wrote:
[to Brandon van Every:]
> If you want to market Lisp, "just do it", don't pester comp.lang.lisp
> about not being marketers.
All the evidence suggests that he doesn't in the least
want to market Lisp. He wants to tell Lisp users how
lousy they are at marketing, and how their language
of choice is unable to solve his problems. A bit of
googling suggests that he has done likewise for some
other languages, too.
It seems to me that if you have a task involving
programming, and if none of the existing programming
languages enables you to solve your problems, then
you should find some other problems. Unless you
are sufficiently creative and dedicated to do a
good job of making your own language that somehow
solves your problems; which is harder than most
people think.
--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BRANDON J. VAN EVERY BEFORE REPLYING TO
ONE OF HIS POSTS
1. He has never designed any game, nor contributed to the design of
any game, which has ever seen the light of day, despite referring
to himself as a "game designer."
2. He has never been employed in the game industry, in any way,
shape, manner or form. Despite this, for some reason he managed
to get named as an Independent Games Festival judge; a curious
turn of events, since their stated intent is to appoint
"professionals in the game industry" (their quote, not his).
3. In fact, the only paid work he has ever done as a programmer
(though only allegedly, since the company does not exist anymore
and there is no way to verify this) was for only "2 years" ending
in 1998, working at an entry level position in C and assembly on a
graphics driver, or as he would call it as a "3D graphics
optimization jock." There is no evidence he has used C++, nor any
other language, professionally.
4. The other jobs he has confirmed having after his one and only
programming job are: "yard maintenance work," "sub minimum wage
signature gathering," and working for "$5/hour at a Vietnamese
restaurant."
5. The only personal project he actually wrote code for and made
available in some manner was Free3d, a software 3D rendering
engine which, by his own admission, "barely drew even a single
polygon." Stating that its goals were to be "100% efficient, 100%
portable" and to release it in a "one year time frame," he
received no interest, and abandoned the project after only a few
months, in 1996.
6. Every Internet community (Usenet newsgroup, mailing list, etc.) he
has ever introduced himself to has resulted in him repeating the
same pattern: asking leading questions, demanding people do things
his way, becoming hostile, annoying the other participants,
alienating them, and finally leaving in disgust.
7. Of the projects (open source and otherwise) whose communities he
has (briefly) joined, he has never contributed anything tangible
in terms of code or documentation.
8. The project he has intermittently claimed to be working on, Ocean
Mars, is vaporware. He allegedly sunk "nine months of full time
60 hours/week" and about "$60,000" into it with only a "spherical
hexified icosahedron" display to show for it (allegedly, since no
one else has ever actually seen it).
9. Since his embarassing frustration with his Ocean Mars project, he
has decided that C and C++ aren't "worth anything as a resume
skill anymore," and embarked on a quest in 2003 to find a
high-level language that will suit his needs. After more than a
year, at least ten languages, and not having even "written a line
of code" in any of them, he still has yet to find a language that
will suit him.
10. Finally, despite vehemently insisting that he is not a troll, many
people quite understandingly have great difficulty distinguishing
his public behavior from that of a troll.
On 25 Mar 2005 17:07:03 -0800, <············@yahoo.com> wrote:
> THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BRANDON J. VAN EVERY BEFORE REPLYING TO
> ONE OF HIS POSTS
>
> 10. Finally, despite vehemently insisting that he is not a troll, many
> people quite understandingly have great difficulty distinguishing
> his public behavior from that of a troll.
Interesting. I'd guessed about half of that. He does seem to be an
above average troll, perhaps that success has gone to his head.
--
Everyman has three hearts;
one to show the world, one to show friends, and one only he knows.
Info about ············@yahoo.com:
> 10. Finally, despite vehemently insisting that he is not a troll, many
> people quite understandingly have great difficulty distinguishing
> his public behavior from that of a troll.
>
Ok, now go back to trolltown.