kyle@xanth.UUCP (Kyle Jones) (11/06/87)
Does anyone know of an effort similar to ANSI's X3J11 committee (which is developing a standard for the C language) to standardize Lisp? Does anyone even have a list of functions that I can expect to be consistent between different Lisps? I've done a considerable amount of work with Lisp but with only two flavors, so I'd appreciate responses from Lisp users who have used many different Lisp systems. kyle jones <kyle@odu.edu> old dominion university, norfolk, va usa
pavel@parcvax.Xerox.COM (Pavel Curtis) (11/06/87)
The ANSI committee X3J13 was created to standardize the language Common Lisp, as originally documented in "Common Lisp: the Language", by Guy Steele. It is generally recognized that Common Lisp is now and will remain the primary standard for Lisp for the near future (say, a decade). You asked about a specification for what things are likely to remain the same. I recommend the book by Steele. There is no better specification right now. Ongoing design and other questions take place on the ARPAnet mailing list Common-Lisp@SAIL.Stanford.Edu. This list is not available on the USENET and is not likely to be made so. Pavel Curtis Xerox PARC Member, X3J13
barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin) (11/07/87)
In article <3227@xanth.UUCP> kyle@xanth.UUCP (Kyle Jones) writes: >Does anyone know of an effort similar to ANSI's X3J11 committee (which >is developing a standard for the C language) to standardize Lisp? Yes, X3J13 is the technical committee working on a standard for Common Lisp. It has been in existence for about a year. >Does anyone even have a list of functions that I can expect to be >consistent between different Lisps? I've done a considerable amount >of work with Lisp but with only two flavors, so I'd appreciate >responses from Lisp users who have used many different Lisp systems. There aren't many universal Lisp functions. Off the top of my head I come up with CAR, CDR, CONS, LIST, SETQ, and the simple mathematical functions (although they tend to differ about whether they are generic and the types of results they return); most have COND, but some may only have IF; RPLACA and RPLACD were pretty common until Common Lisp replaced them with SETF. Common differences among dialects include function defining (DEF vs. DEFINE vs. DEFUN vs. ...), array creation and reference, structures, I/O, and type-testing. However, there are now a number of Common Lisp implementations for different machines, and they are all mostly compatible, and this is the basis of the ANSI standardization effort, so your best bet is to write your programs in Common Lisp. Until the standard comes out, the most complete description of CL is in "Common Lisp: the Language", by Guy L. Steele, Jr., published by Digital Press in 1984 and available in most bookstores with a decent computer section. --- Barry Margolin Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com seismo!think!barmar
bruce@stride.Stride.COM (Bruce Robertson) (11/15/87)
In article <606@parcvax.Xerox.COM> pavel@parcvax.xerox.com.UUCP (Pavel Curtis) writes: > >Ongoing design and other questions take >place on the ARPAnet mailing list Common-Lisp@SAIL.Stanford.Edu. This >list is not available on the USENET and is not likely to be made so. Now, let's not be stuffy. Anyone on USENET that has MX service from an Internet host can be on this mailing list. -- Bruce Robertson bruce@stride.Stride.COM
pavel@parcvax.UUCP (11/20/87)
In article <694@stride.Stride.COM> (Bruce Robertson) writes: >In article <606@parcvax.Xerox.COM> (Pavel Curtis) writes: >> >>Ongoing design and other questions take >>place on the ARPAnet mailing list Common-Lisp@SAIL.Stanford.Edu. This >>list is not available on the USENET and is not likely to be made so. > >Now, let's not be stuffy. Anyone on USENET that has MX service from >an Internet host can be on this mailing list. Actually, anyone on a UUCP host having MX mail-forwarding service can be on the list. However, USENET is not the same as UUCP. USENET is the set of hosts running the news system. The Common-Lisp list will likely never be a newsgroup so it will thus never be available on the USENET. Pavel