Every now and then some guy proposes that "the Common Lisp Standard
needs to be updated, because it lacks regular expressions/sockets/
threads/cute girls/new buzzwords/etc."
The main problem, of course, is that while libraries for such things
(except maybe cute girls) are available on the Internet, they're not
very visible. Worse, often one finds several libraries that do
overlapping things. For sockets, for example, there are trivial-
sockets, db-sockets, usocket. Of these, it seems only usocket is in
active support/dev.
Searching for "common lisp sockets" on Google returns a bunch of
pages, each of which seems to refer to a *different* socket library
and/or compatibility layer. This only compounds the problem, since
some of the referred libraries seem to be deprecated or unsupported.
This makes it rather hard for a newbie to figure out what to use.
Thus, after yet another newbie encounters this roadblock, the cry
"update Common Lisp!" is heard once again.
"They say that as languages evolve, all languages approach Lisp. I
ask, what does Lisp approach?"
- Me, right now
Anyway, probably we may not exactly need to update the Common Lisp
Standard, since apparently it is very, very hard to do so.
Still, some people have been mentioning a sort of "common library" of
libraries. The libraries included would be those that are generally
accepted as the best (in terms of generality, maybe?) among the
choices.
For instance, for system definitions there's asdf and there's mk-
defsystem. However, most would recommend that for new systems asdf
should be used. So this "common library" would contain asdf, since it
is the recommended and often accepted as the best choice.
Other "best choices" would probably be CL-PPCRE and Hunchentoot,
maybe.
But then, CLiki does have a list of recommended libraries. They're
just not *packaged in one place*. Also, that particular page is *not*
easily seen from Google.
The proposed common library, I think, would package the libraries in
one place and enforce a consistent documentation for included
libraries (and would be a bit of a headache to force together, I
think).
Further, IMO we also need to *Googlebomb* the web page for that
library, so that it would be more easily seen when some random newbie
searches for a package to do something. For example, "common lisp
sockets" lists as the top link a web page which describes how to use
CLOCC. According to CLiki, though, CLOCC seems to be inactive.
So, perhaps, we really do need a common library, one which says "This
is a Standard Library [or similarly impressive words] which contains
support for the following features, to install, download this". And
it needs to be googlebombed, so that it is readily visible.
....Of course, probably the best thing for me to do is to fill up an
application to common-lisp.net stating my intended "common library"
project, since probably you elves will just say both aye and naye (and
probably in apparently nasty ways too). [Okay, okay, I hope you
don't. I'm just lacking in cute girls, is all.]
(message (Hello 'Alan)
(you :wrote :on '(1 May 2007 08:24:38 -0700))
(
AMK> So, perhaps, we really do need a common library, one which says "This
AMK> is a Standard Library [or similarly impressive words] which contains
AMK> support for the following features, to install, download this". And
AMK> it needs to be googlebombed, so that it is readily visible.
instead of googlebombing i think it's better to teach users to use
cl-user.net (common lisp directory) for library search instead of google
first.
then maybe some "recommended libraries" section should be added to it, if
you insist. or some "wizard"-style interface, where you choose
implementations you want to support, feature you'd like -- and it shows list
of recommended libraries.
one of recent efforts to make a list of recommended libraries is
STARTER-PACK by Dr. Edmund Weitz (http://weitz.de/starter-pack/). many
useful libraries are bundled with it. unfortunately it's Windows-only, but
there are similar packages for Linux and Mac OS X.
that should be very good for beginners, lispnicks with more experience
should have no problems finding libraries.
)
(With-best-regards '(Alex Mizrahi) :aka 'killer_storm)
"I am everything you want and I am everything you need")