barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) (04/10/91)
I'm compiling a list of frequently-asked questions about Lisp with answers, as these types of lists have become popular on Usenet. I'll be posting it to the Usenet newsgroup comp.lang.lisp periodically. I'll also post the initial one to common-lisp@mcc.com, and perhaps periodically post a pointer to where it may be FTPed from. When I get a version that I think is in reasonable shape I may try to publish it in Lisp Pointers. I'm looking for good questions to include in the list. Please send me mail with any questions you think I should include. If you know the answer, include it; if not, I'll try to answer it myself. In addition to the ones people submit specifically for this use, I'll include questions that I've seen or see in the future. Some of the questions I already know I'll include are: * How can I access structure slots by slot name? * Why doesn't (read-from-string <string> :start 5) work? * How do I compile <package> in <implementation> [for various popular {<package>,<implementation>} tuples, especially {CLX,(A)KCL} and {PCL,(A)KCL}]? * How can I use CLOS and packages together? I could actually use answers to the third question above. I'd also like to include non-language information in the FAQ list. This would include a list of mailing lists and newsgroups related to Lisp, a list of Lisp vendors and user groups with contact addresses and phone numbers, a list of useful reference material (the "useful" qualifier is intended to weed out obsolete stuff such as the Lisp 1.5 Reference Manual -- other than this I'd like to be non-judgemental), a list of popular Lisp implementations and utilities available for free on the net (e.g. KCL, XLISP, PCL, and the various packages for interfacing Emacs and Lisp). I'll definitely need help compiling most of this (although I already have a pretty good list of mailing lists, thanks to Joe Karnicky and Rick Duffy). Barry Margolin Thinking Machines Corporation 245 First Street Cambridge, MA 02142 USA Fax: +1 (617) 234-4444 Internet: barmar@think.com UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar -- Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar