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Beginners course

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Sumedha Kshirsagar

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Feb 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/4/00
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I am sure this question must have appeared here n number of times, but
could not find in the present archive.

Which is the good book on lisp for a beginner?

Thanks a million

Sumedha

Andrew Cooke

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Feb 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/4/00
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In article <389AD445...@cui.unige.ch>,

Sumedha Kshirsagar <sumedha.k...@cui.unige.ch> wrote:
> I am sure this question must have appeared here n number of times, but
> could not find in the present archive.
>
> Which is the good book on lisp for a beginner?

There's a pile of useful lisp info at www.alu.org - in particular, see
http://www.alu.org/table/learn.htm

Andrew


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Michael Hudson

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Feb 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/4/00
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Sumedha Kshirsagar <sumedha.k...@cui.unige.ch> writes:

> I am sure this question must have appeared here n number of times,
> but could not find in the present archive.
>
> Which is the good book on lisp for a beginner?

A beginner at lisp, or a beginner at programming?

In the first case, "ANSI Common Lisp" by Paul Graham is often
recommended - and with good reason, it's great.

In the other case, I'm not sure - "Structure and Interpretation of
Computer Programs" is good, but

(a) it's probably a bit scary if you are genuinely new to programming

(b) it's scheme based, and while scheme is (usually regarded as) *a*
lisp, it is not "lisp" (which round here ususally means common
lisp, hence the above recommendation).

There are other suggestions at

http://www.lisp.org/table/books.htm

Have fun!

Michael

PS: There's an online book at

http://psg.com/~dlamkins/left/sl/sl.html

but I haven't looked at it much as I detest reading large amounts of
prose form the screen.

Robert Posey

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Feb 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/4/00
to

Michael Hudson wrote:
>
> Sumedha Kshirsagar <sumedha.k...@cui.unige.ch> writes:
>
> > I am sure this question must have appeared here n number of times,
> > but could not find in the present archive.
> >
> > Which is the good book on lisp for a beginner?
>
> A beginner at lisp, or a beginner at programming?
>
> In the first case, "ANSI Common Lisp" by Paul Graham is often
> recommended - and with good reason, it's great.

I am a beginner and don't agree at all. The presentation is shallow and
chaotic. I also have "LISP" 3rd Edition by Winston and Horn and so far
(chapter 8) its the best learn the language book I have seen. It is very
good at giving multiple examples using the same data sets so you can
learn the differences. SO far its simply a much better book.

Muddy

Janos Blazi

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Feb 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/5/00
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There is a very nice online book by Lamkins.
I have read the German traslation of the book by Graham and in my opinion
the book by Lamkins is much better. That may depend on your taste, however.
I like books that are as elementary and clear as possible assuming that the
reader has no no idea at all.
And anyway, it is free.

You can find it on the lisp home page. Theofficial address ist
http:\\www.lisp.org

If you are interested in books on Scheme as well, then "Simply Scheme" by
Harvey and Wright and "Concrete Abstraction" by Hailperin and others are
both nice (though I would prefer the latter).

Janos Blazi

Janos Blazi

Sumedha Kshirsagar <sumedha.k...@cui.unige.ch> schrieb in im
Newsbeitrag: 389AD445...@cui.unige.ch...


> I am sure this question must have appeared here n number of times, but
> could not find in the present archive.
>
> Which is the good book on lisp for a beginner?
>

> Thanks a million
>
> Sumedha


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Tim Josling

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Feb 6, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/6/00
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I have read the whole thing and I found it very good. What is
missing is a reference to all the functions and reserved words
(some sort of reference summary), but with a reference summary
from sonewhere it is fine. Also he has an irritating habit of
using ostentatiously sexist language (eg "The programmer may then
save her program") which I found annoying and distracting.

Tim Josling

The Michael Hudson wrote:
> ...

Nemo

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Feb 7, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/7/00
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Sumedha Kshirsagar wrote:

> I am sure this question must have appeared here n number of times, but
> could not find in the present archive.
>
> Which is the good book on lisp for a beginner?
>
> Thanks a million
>
> Sumedha

I've just started learning LISP using the site
http://grimpeur.tamu.edu/~colin/lp

(Sorry, had a typo before.)

Kenneth P. Turvey

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Feb 7, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/7/00
to
On Sun, 06 Feb 2000 08:49:00 +1100, Tim Josling <t...@melbpc.org.au> wrote:
>I have read the whole thing and I found it very good. What is
>missing is a reference to all the functions and reserved words
>(some sort of reference summary), but with a reference summary
>from sonewhere it is fine. Also he has an irritating habit of
>using ostentatiously sexist language (eg "The programmer may then
>save her program") which I found annoying and distracting.

I liked it as a tutorial...

As far as the language goes.. Some people advocate alternating between
the masculine and feminine pronouns to avoid being sexist. I agree
it is somewhat distracting, but then I am a member of the oppressive male
oligarchy.

--
Kenneth P. Turvey <kt-...@SprocketShop.com>
--------------------------------------------
Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die.
-- Tim Steeves

Robert Monfera

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Feb 7, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/7/00
to

"Kenneth P. Turvey" wrote:

[...]


> Some people advocate alternating between
> the masculine and feminine pronouns to avoid being sexist.

[...]

It's actually a bug in English. Pronouns in some languages do not
distinguish between sexes.

Robert

Raffael Cavallaro

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Feb 8, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/8/00
to
In article <389B1732...@raytheon.com>, Robert Posey
<mu...@raytheon.com> wrote:

>> In the first case, "ANSI Common Lisp" by Paul Graham is often
>> recommended - and with good reason, it's great.
>
>I am a beginner and don't agree at all. The presentation is shallow and
>chaotic.

ANSI Common Lisp is bad for people new to programming, and especially
bad for people new to computer science. Graham assumes from the start
that the reader is familiar with some programming language (probably C
or BASIC) and so knows about functions, return values, iteration, files,
etc. It is by no means an introduction to programming, using common
lisp. It is a fairly complete, and fairly deep introduction to, and
exploration of, ANSI Common Lisp. It also has an excellent reference
appendix.

However, if you are familiar with programming, but want to learn common
lisp, It is, IMHO the very best book you could possibly buy. I've read
Slade's Object Oriented Common Lisp, Winston & Horn, and Norvig's
Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming, and none of these is
as concise and to the point as Graham's ANSI Common Lisp. As a language
tutorial and reference, it's simply the best. Robert my not like
Graham's terseness ("shallow and chaotic") but those who have learned
languages by reading compiler reference manuals will appreciate the fact
that Graham gets to the point, and quickly moves on to the next one.

Norvig's PAIP is also an excellent text, but it is much longer, and, of
course, more focused on AI applications. Graham has one, and only one
goal - to teach the reader common lisp as set forth in the ANSI
standard. This makes ACL much shorter, and more portable (seriously, you
can't really carry PAIP around with you for very long, its as big as
many medium sized cities' phone books). The HyperSpec is a superior
reference, but it will not teach you the language like ANSI Common Lisp.

just my $.02

Ralph

--

Raffael Cavallaro, Ph.D.
raf...@mediaone.net

H Elmer

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Feb 8, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/8/00
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In article <389AD445...@cui.unige.ch>,

Sumedha Kshirsagar <sumedha.k...@cui.unige.ch> wrote:
> I am sure this question must have appeared here n number of times, but
> could not find in the present archive.
>
> Which is the good book on lisp for a beginner?
>
> Thanks a million
>
> Sumedha
>
I was asking the same question about a year ago, and got referred to
ANSI Common Lisp, which since I don't have hardly any programming
experience stalled me out a bit, but this website has really helped, I'm
still there working through it now and again:

http://www.psychologie.uni-trier.de:8000/elmart

If anyone can throw in a few more pennies about a basic pregramming
concepts book that will help me w/ lisp I'd appreciate that too.

Good Luck,

'H' (Howard) Elmer

Kenneth P. Turvey

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Feb 8, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/8/00
to
On Mon, 07 Feb 2000 18:01:36 -0500, Robert Monfera <mon...@fisec.com> wrote:
>[...]
>> Some people advocate alternating between
>> the masculine and feminine pronouns to avoid being sexist.
>[...]
>
>It's actually a bug in English. Pronouns in some languages do not
>distinguish between sexes.

Even most of those languages would be considered sexist based on the
same criteria. The selection of masculine vs. feminine pronouns depends
on what you are talking about. In some cases, like when discussing a
table or a chair, there is no room for offense, but in others, like when
discussing lawyers vs. janitors, somebody might be offended.

Even languages that have neuter pronouns don't use them everywhere they
might be considered applicable.

Languages evolve slowly... most of the time.

In English, most of the time, we use the masculine pronouns for neuter
nouns.

--
Kenneth P. Turvey <kt-...@SprocketShop.com> (not a linguist)
--------------------------------------------
Every country has the government it deserves.
-- Joseph de Maistre

P.S. In Lisp there is no concept of a pronoun, nor is there any concept
of masculine or feminine :-)

Robert Monfera

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Feb 8, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/8/00
to

"Kenneth P. Turvey" wrote:

[...]


> Even languages that have neuter pronouns don't use them everywhere

> they might be considered applicable. [...]

In Hungarian there is no gender-dependent pronoun at all, so there is no
temptation!

> P.S. In Lisp there is no concept of a pronoun,
> nor is there any concept of masculine or feminine :-)

(defun lambda-amor (doubts &rest broken-hearts)
(declare (optimize speed (debug 0) (safety 0))
(ignore doubts broken-hearts))
(let* ((he (the guy next door))
(she (his girlfriend)))
(declare (type fixnum he)
(type bignum she))
(setf (husband her &allow-other-keys nil)
(unless (boundp he) (coerce him 'bit)))))

Robert

Thomas A. Russ

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Feb 9, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/9/00
to
kt-...@SprocketShop.com (Kenneth P. Turvey) writes:

> P.S. In Lisp there is no concept of a pronoun, ...

Not quite true. There is a neuter pronoun in LOOP:

(loop for i from 0 to 1000
when (integer-square-root i)
collect it)

(defun integer-square-root (n)
;; Returns the square root of N if it is an integer value,
;; otherwise returns NIL.
(let ((root (sqrt n)))
(when (= root (truncate root))
(truncate root))))

Reference:
http://www.harlequin.com/support/books/HyperSpec/Body/sec_6-1-6.html

--
Thomas A. Russ, USC/Information Sciences Institute t...@isi.edu

Lieven Marchand

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Feb 9, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/9/00
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kt-...@SprocketShop.com (Kenneth P. Turvey) writes:

> On Mon, 07 Feb 2000 18:01:36 -0500, Robert Monfera <mon...@fisec.com> wrote:
> >It's actually a bug in English. Pronouns in some languages do not
> >distinguish between sexes.
>
> Even most of those languages would be considered sexist based on the
> same criteria.

I don't know what Robert had in mind, but there are languages such as
Finnish, where the only distinction in pronouns is between
animate/inanimate. The pronoun used for persons has only one form and
you cannot distinguish between male and female.

Finnish "Se" means he or she, "On" means it.

--
Lieven Marchand <m...@bewoner.dma.be>
If there are aliens, they play Go. -- Lasker

Kimmo T Takkunen

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Feb 9, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/9/00
to
In article <87sjff$lfo$1...@newnews1.news.nl.uu.net>, Lieven Marchand wrote:
>kt-...@SprocketShop.com (Kenneth P. Turvey) writes:
>

>I don't know what Robert had in mind, but there are languages such as
>Finnish, where the only distinction in pronouns is between
>animate/inanimate. The pronoun used for persons has only one form and
>you cannot distinguish between male and female.
>
>Finnish "Se" means he or she, "On" means it.

Minor correction:
"se" means it, "on" means is, "hän" means he/she.

>--
>Lieven Marchand <m...@bewoner.dma.be>
>If there are aliens, they play Go. -- Lasker

-- Kimmo
((lambda (integer)
(coerce (loop for i upfrom 0 by 8 below (integer-length integer)
collect (code-char (ldb (byte 8 i) integer))) 'string))
100291759904362517251920937783274743691485481194069255743433035)

Robert Monfera

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Feb 9, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/9/00
to

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:

> The point is to give the impression that it's equally likely that a
> physician, programmer, attorney, etc. is a "she" as a "he."

Time to build this rule in MS Word. The wordcount summary would notify
authors of any bias, propose replacements and insert a dummy sentence if
the number of pronouns is odd to restore the oh-so-politically-desirable
balance. She would double-blink as the prison guard writing her report
on people not obeying the rule hits the rythm.

Robert

Tapio Huuhka

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Feb 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/10/00
to
Lieven Marchand wrote:
>
> Finnish "Se" means he or she, "On" means it.
>

perhaps you thought of "hän" for he or she and "se" for it.

Tapio

Raffael Cavallaro

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Feb 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/10/00
to
In article <slrn8a06n3...@pug1.sprocketshop.com>,
kt-...@SprocketShop.com (Kenneth P. Turvey) wrote:

>In English, most of the time, we use the masculine pronouns for neuter
>nouns.

In the states, we've been using "she" where once the standard was "he"
som years now. t raised some eyebrows in my dissertation back in '88,
but ultimately, nobody objected. Some prefer to alternate between the
two. The point is to give the impression that it's equally likely that a

physician, programmer, attorney, etc. is a "she" as a "he."

"When a programmer chooses a language, she would do well to select
common lisp." ;^)

Kenneth P. Turvey

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Feb 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/10/00
to
I was corrected via email. In my discussion of English grammar I often
referred to pronouns used for people of indeterminate sex as neuter.
This isn't really the case. In English the neuter pronoun is "it", we
use "he" typically when we are referring to people of indeterminate sex
(although not always and there is no steadfast rule).

Should we modify the LOOP macro to accept "he", "she", and "it"?

--
Kenneth P. Turvey <kt-...@SprocketShop.com>

--------------------------------------------
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Martti Halminen

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Feb 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/10/00
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Lieven Marchand wrote:

> I don't know what Robert had in mind, but there are languages such as
> Finnish, where the only distinction in pronouns is between
> animate/inanimate. The pronoun used for persons has only one form and
> you cannot distinguish between male and female.

> Finnish "Se" means he or she, "On" means it.

In principle correct, but you got the words wrong:

"Hän" -> he or she

"Se" -> it

("On" would be the verb "is".)

Fredrik Sandstrom

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Feb 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/10/00
to
In article <87sjff$lfo$1...@newnews1.news.nl.uu.net>, Lieven Marchand wrote:
>I don't know what Robert had in mind, but there are languages such as
>Finnish, where the only distinction in pronouns is between
>animate/inanimate. The pronoun used for persons has only one form and
>you cannot distinguish between male and female.
>
>Finnish "Se" means he or she, "On" means it.

No, "Se" means it, "Hän" means he or she. (The character ä, in case you
can't see it properly, is an a with two dots.) "On" means (roughly)
"is", so "Hän on" means "He is" or "She is", depending on context.

But the point was correct - there are not two different words for he and
she as in most languages (well, most languages that I'm aware of...)


--
- Fredrik Sandstrom fre...@infa.abo.fi http://infa.abo.fi/~fredrik -
Computer Science at Abo Akademi University --

Sumedha Kshirsagar

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Feb 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/11/00
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It is quite interesting and perhaps entertaining to some, how the
original question got diverted into some other linguistic dicussion!

Thanks to all for giving all your opinions and feedbacks!

Robert Monfera wrote:


>
> Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
>
> > The point is to give the impression that it's equally likely that a
> > physician, programmer, attorney, etc. is a "she" as a "he."
>

dlin...@my-deja.com

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Feb 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/11/00
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To those who wanted some info on Lisp primers....

I just started programming in lisp a few months ago, and I can tell you
my learning process. This may be of use for others who would like to
explore Lisp but haven't found a clear path.

I started with Lamkin's on line book to get a flavor for the language.
I simultaneously downloaded the Franz trial version for Linux and
windows, as well as the Linux and windows trials from Harlequin. You
can still get these from the Franz and Harlequin web sites.

Decided I loved the language, and that I could port a pretty
sophisticated C++ application that I've been working on for 2 years to
Lisp. Thought that it would make a great learning project.

Decided that Franz/Emacs Linux version was the most solid free product
for learning.( I have been C/C++ programming on Linux for years so it
was an easy choice.)

After finishing Lamkins' book, I started buying Lisp books in bulk!!
(There aren't all that many good ones, and a for few hundred dollars you
can get them all!!)

Started reading Winston's book, but stopped about mid-way, once I
found....

Touretzky's Common Lisp, A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation.

Finished that book, and read in its entirety. It is very good.

The Common Lisp Companion by Timothy D. Koschmann
This book is a GREAT primer... I think the best starter book!!

In order to convert my C++ program, which has 15,000 lines of code and
is highly object oriented, I needed more literature on CLOS. Thus,
I've read about halfway through Sonya Keene's CLOS book, which is
another great primer.

I've done a COMPLETE conversion of my c++ program. It has about 1000
lines of code, and is much better and more elegant than the C++ program.
This took only 3 weeks, after studying and playing with lisp for about a
month. So, it has 1/15th the lines of code, and took maybe 1/12th the
time to develop. It's speed is only slightly slower - not enough to
matter for this application. Machine cycles are cheap. Developer time is
not!! :)

There are a lot of wonderful features of Lisp for a C++ programmer -
here are a few:
The first jubilation occurred when I could finally say NO to templates.
Then I had an epiphany experience when I created methods which created
other methods at run-time. This feature eliminated MANY hacky lines of
C++ code!! And incremental compilation and Lisp's high degree of
interactivity makes developing a much more pleasurable experience.

I picked up Steele's Common Lisp 2nd Edition on Ebay (I'm buying another
one as well so I don't have to lug it home from work). This is a
necessity.

I got these used (and cheap!!), but they may be difficult to track
down. Check out Barnes & Nobles used book department or
www.abebooks.com for a great used book search.

My future plans:
Finish Keene's CLOS book.

I am now reading Norvig's Artificial Intelligence Programming:
Case Studies in Common Lisp, which I find to be very lucid.

I am the middle of Graham's Ansi Common Lisp Primer, and need to finish
that.

I would like a windowing system, and I don't want a proprietary one, so
I am going to start looking at CLIM.

---- Though I am uncertain about continuing to use Franz as a vehicle in
learning lisp. In order to get CLIM from Franz, I was quoted a price of
$3000.00 for their professional version for linux. They have a
"personal" windows edition for I think $695. But they don't have a
"personal" linux edition. I would gladly pay 695$ to hack around with
CLIM on linux, but it is hard to justify 3000.00 to play with some
graphics code. Maybe when I am a better Lisper, as I really dig Franz's
product.

If you are reading this Franz -- I'll give you $695 for a personal linux
version which includes CLIM just to learn about the product!!!


Thus I need to explore CMUCL which I think has CLIM. Any suggestions
for exploring CLIM ??....

Other books I have and want to read:
I have Kiczales' book - The Art of the Metaobject protocol , and
Paepcke's book, Object Oriented Programming, The CLOS Perspective, which
you can get from MIT out of print books.
Also Graham's other more advanced text, On Lisp.

Hope this helps....
Dave Linenberg

Hartmann Schaffer

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Feb 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/11/00
to
In article <882005$t82$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
dlin...@my-deja.com writes:
> ...

> I would like a windowing system, and I don't want a proprietary one, so
> I am going to start looking at CLIM.

unfortunately afaik, CLIM is only available for acl, harlequin's lisp,
and mcl. ther is a free clim project (at cons.org), though their mailing
list seems to be not very active. you might want to give garnet a tryt

> ...


> Thus I need to explore CMUCL which I think has CLIM. Any suggestions
> for exploring CLIM ??....

no, CMUCL does not have CLIM. but you could use garnet

> ...

--

Hartmann Schaffer

It is better to fill your days with life than your life with days

Rainer Joswig

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Feb 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/11/00
to
In article <38a48...@flint.sentex.net>, h...@inferno.nirvananet
(Hartmann Schaffer) wrote:

> In article <882005$t82$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> dlin...@my-deja.com writes:
> > ...
> > I would like a windowing system, and I don't want a proprietary one, so
> > I am going to start looking at CLIM.
>
> unfortunately afaik, CLIM is only available for acl, harlequin's lisp,
> and mcl.

and Genera and Open Genera.

Rainer Joswig, ISION Internet AG, Harburger Schlossstrasse 1,
21079 Hamburg, Germany, Tel: +49 40 77175 226
Email: rainer...@ision.de , WWW: http://www.ision.de/

Rainer Joswig

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Feb 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/11/00
to
In article <882005$t82$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, dlin...@my-deja.com wrote:

> If you are reading this Franz -- I'll give you $695 for a personal linux
> version which includes CLIM just to learn about the product!!!

Here are the Xanalys' prices:

http://www.harlequin.com/products/st/lisp/purchase.shtml

Lisp Products Pricing
All prices are in US Dollars. Volume discounts are available.

UNIX Products Base Price Academic Price
Liquid Common Lisp $4,500 $2,250
LispWorks $4,500 $2,250
KnowledgeWorks $1,500 $750
CLIM 2.0 $1,150 $565
Harlequin CL ORB $1,500 $750
Transducer $1,500 $750
UNIX Runtimes $750 $375

Annual Support and Maintenance: 25% of Base Price.
Academic Support and Maintenance: First year free; subsequent years:
25% of Commercial Base Price


PC Products* Base Price

LWW or LWL Professional $799
LWW or LWL Professional Academic $699
LWW or LWL Enterprise $1,999
LWW or LWL Enterprise Runtimes $300
LWW or LWL Pro to Ent upgrade $1,499
LWW or LWL Support 5 Pack $600
LWW or LWL Support 10 Pack $1,100
LWW or LWL Support 20 Pack $2,000

* Our PC Products include:
- LispWorks for Windows (LWW) for Win 95, Win 98 and NT 4.0 running on Intel hardware
- LispWorks for Linux (LWL) for RedHat Linux 5.2 and 6.0

-------------------

The LispWorks Professional and Enterprise products for the PC
include CLIM. The LispWorks Professional product has royalty-free
delivery.

Rainer Joswig, ISION Internet AG, Harburger Schlossstraße 1,

Erik Naggum

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Feb 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/11/00
to
* kt-...@SprocketShop.com (Kenneth P. Turvey)

| I was corrected via email. In my discussion of English grammar I often
| referred to pronouns used for people of indeterminate sex as neuter.
| This isn't really the case. In English the neuter pronoun is "it", we
| use "he" typically when we are referring to people of indeterminate sex
| (although not always and there is no steadfast rule).
|
| Should we modify the LOOP macro to accept "he", "she", and "it"?

if someone ever gets the really bad idea to translate Common Lisp to New
Norwegian (as opposed to Old Norse, not the real Norwegian), they will
have to cope with the disconcerting habit in that language of referring
to inanimate objects with "han" (he) and "hun" (she). try "she went to
see this movie. he was better than she expected." on for size.

#:Erik

Bulent Murtezaoglu

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Feb 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/11/00
to
[no lisp whatsoever]

MD> ... German has both female,
MD> male and neutral forms, IIRC French and Italian have female
MD> and male. About the only language I know (well, my knowledge
MD> is quite limited) with only one form would be English...

Well, Turkish only has neutral pronouns and no pervasive use of articles
(they are neutral anyway). This should make it very simple. People find
it hard mostly because of the number of verb tenses (what's so unnatural
about having a past tense for hearsay?).

Why are we talking about this? Did somebody suggest a gender declartion
or something?

BM

Michael Dingler

unread,
Feb 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/12/00
to
> if someone ever gets the really bad idea to translate Common Lisp to New
> Norwegian (as opposed to Old Norse, not the real Norwegian), they will
> have to cope with the disconcerting habit in that language of referring
> to inanimate objects with "han" (he) and "hun" (she). try "she went to
> see this movie. he was better than she expected." on for size.

Linguists to the rescue, isn't this more like the norm and English
is one of the few exceptions? German has both female, male and neutral
forms, IIRC French and Italian have female and male. About the only
language I know (well, my knowledge is quite limited) with only


one form would be English...

It gets interesting when you consider the genders of objects in
different
language, e.g. in German "the moon" is "der Mond" (the moon's male),
while the Italian version would be "la luna" i.e. female...

Gee, I'm getting a little bit astray, not a big lisp context anymore.
Well, maybe this just shows that the less syntax there is, the less
trouble you have when it comes to international use of the language.

...Michael...

Gareth McCaughan

unread,
Feb 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/12/00
to
dlin...@my-deja.com writes:

> I picked up Steele's Common Lisp 2nd Edition on Ebay (I'm buying another
> one as well so I don't have to lug it home from work). This is a
> necessity.

I like CLTL2 very much, but from the fact that you say it's
"a necessity" I conjecture that you don't know about the
Common Lisp HyperSpec? This is an HTMLified version of the
ANSI standard, it's available for free, and it's *very*
good. Go to http://www.harlequin.com/ and have a poke around.

--
Gareth McCaughan Gareth.M...@pobox.com
sig under construction

dlin...@my-deja.com

unread,
Feb 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/12/00
to
Gareth McCaughan <Gareth.M...@pobox.com> wrote:
> I like CLTL2 very much, but from the fact that you say it's
> "a necessity" I conjecture that you don't know about the
> Common Lisp HyperSpec? This is an HTMLified version of the
> ANSI standard, it's available for free, and it's *very*
> good. Go to http://www.harlequin.com/ and have a poke around.
>
> --
> Gareth McCaughan Gareth.M...@pobox.com
> sig under construction
>

I believe you can get CLTL2 on the web as well. You can also get the non
hyperspec format of the standard - and print the whole thing out - in
postscript format, if you'd like. It is BIG.. or pay around 500$ from
the standards place.

I just like book -paper/print- formats better in general for this type
of information.

Erik Naggum

unread,
Feb 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/13/00
to
* Michael Dingler <mdin...@mindless.com>

| Linguists to the rescue, isn't this more like the norm and English
| is one of the few exceptions?

well, real Norwegian doesn't suffer from this confusion of inanimate with
animate objects, and usually restricts "he" and "she" to human beings.
inanimate objects and in most circumstances also animals are referenced
with our equivalents of "it", which may be "den" (male/female gender) or
"det" (neuter gender). incidentally, furriners get this wrong all the
time, so it is clearly complex.

#:Erik

. . . H . . .

unread,
Feb 14, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/14/00
to

> Hope this helps....


> Dave Linenberg
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>

Yeah, this was a really good post for me, since I'm so new to lisp and
programming in general I got a lot of good info. here, thanks!

--
. . . H . . .

Tord Kallqvist Romstad

unread,
Feb 15, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/15/00
to
On 11 Feb 2000 23:30:37 +0000, Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.no> wrote:
>* kt-...@SprocketShop.com (Kenneth P. Turvey)
>| I was corrected via email. In my discussion of English grammar I often
>| referred to pronouns used for people of indeterminate sex as neuter.
>| This isn't really the case. In English the neuter pronoun is "it", we
>| use "he" typically when we are referring to people of indeterminate sex
>| (although not always and there is no steadfast rule).
>|
>| Should we modify the LOOP macro to accept "he", "she", and "it"?
>
> if someone ever gets the really bad idea to translate Common Lisp to New
> Norwegian (as opposed to Old Norse, not the real Norwegian), they will
> have to cope with the disconcerting habit in that language of referring
> to inanimate objects with "han" (he) and "hun" (she). try "she went to
> see this movie. he was better than she expected." on for size.

This is very common in other languages as well. German, Icelandic and most
(all?) Slavonic and Romanic (sp?) languages behave just like New Norwegian
in this respect.

Tord

nirsul

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Feb 22, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/22/00
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Janos Blazi <jbl...@netsurf.de> wrote in message
news:389c1469$1...@127.0.0.1...
> There is a very nice online book by Lamkins.
> I have read the German traslation of the book by Graham and in my opinion
> the book by Lamkins is much better


I second this opinion !!!

Because of P Graham - I am still a beginner ( more than a year after buying
his book)!!!

Craig Brozefsky

unread,
Feb 22, 2000, 3:00:00 AM2/22/00
to
"nirsul" <nir...@actcom.co.il> writes:

> Because of P Graham - I am still a beginner ( more than a year after buying
> his book)!!!

That is just about the dumbest comment I've seen on c.l.l all month,
and February has been a banner month for idiocy.

"Because of P Graham - I am still a beginner"

--
Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com>
Free Scheme/Lisp Software http://www.red-bean.com/~craig
"Hiding like thieves in the night from life, illusions of
oasis making you look twice. -- Mos Def and Talib Kweli

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