It apparently costs US $350.00 to buy a copy of the ANSI Lisp standard (www.ansi.org). At first I thought this was impossible, that I was misreading, but I am told that it is true. (The C standard is "only" $130.00).
* Lewis Stiller | It apparently costs US $350.00 to buy a copy of the ANSI Lisp standard | (www.ansi.org). At first I thought this was impossible, that I was | misreading, but I am told that it is true. (The C standard is "only" | $130.00).
yeah, so? (thanks, Will.)
the Common Lisp HyperSpec, published by Harlequin, is a hypertext version of the standard on the Net, including the X3J13 committee issues. I use both the HyperSpec and the paper version daily.
if you don't know how something is supposed to work, you will necessarily use it wrongly. if you know exactly how a language works, you will not be bothered by its restrictions, no matter which language, but can, instead, focus on expressing yourself completely within it. it is nigh impossible to come to peace with the specification for most programming languages, so the value of having the standard as your guide is underappreciated until you realize that money cannot buy what that document contains.
we spend a large fraction of our lives getting very expensive education, then we take jobs that require enormous sacrifices of our selves. many buy homes with money thus earned. all are investments in future stability. all are deemed natural and necessary in a civilized society. much of our political ideas revolve around stability. the standard specification of a programming language is the embodiment of such stability for the employment of a programmer's skills. only on stable ground are you free to roam.
In article <33403FE5.1...@CS.Berkeley.EDU>, Lewis Stiller <stil...@CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>It apparently costs US $350.00 to buy a copy of the ANSI Lisp standard >(www.ansi.org). At first I thought this was impossible, that I was >misreading, but I am told that it is true. (The C standard is "only" >$130.00).
The ANSI Common Lisp standard is 1200 pages long, about 5 times the size of the C standard. And since ANSI standards are a niche product, marketed to businesses rather than the mass market, you don't see consumer prices. -- Barry Margolin BBN Corporation, Cambridge, MA bar...@bbnplanet.com (BBN customers, call (800) 632-7638 option 1 for support)
In article <5hsrc7$...@pasilla.bbnplanet.com>, Barry Margolin
<bar...@bbnplanet.com> wrote: > In article <33403FE5.1...@CS.Berkeley.EDU>, > Lewis Stiller <stil...@CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote: > >It apparently costs US $350.00 to buy a copy of the ANSI Lisp standard > >(www.ansi.org). At first I thought this was impossible, that I was > >misreading, but I am told that it is true. (The C standard is "only" > >$130.00).
> The ANSI Common Lisp standard is 1200 pages long, about 5 times the size of > the C standard. And since ANSI standards are a niche product, marketed to > businesses rather than the mass market, you don't see consumer prices. > --
Why the premium for a language that was supposed to appeal to everyone, including non-programmers? Just questioning your mentality (in a good sense) about this...
(Daitaro Hagihara) writes: > In article <5hsrc7$...@pasilla.bbnplanet.com>, Barry Margolin > <bar...@bbnplanet.com> wrote:
> > In article <33403FE5.1...@CS.Berkeley.EDU>, > > Lewis Stiller <stil...@CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote: > > >It apparently costs US $350.00 to buy a copy of the ANSI Lisp standard > > >(www.ansi.org). At first I thought this was impossible, that I was > > >misreading, but I am told that it is true. (The C standard is "only" > > >$130.00).
> > The ANSI Common Lisp standard is 1200 pages long, about 5 times the size of > > the C standard. And since ANSI standards are a niche product, marketed to > > businesses rather than the mass market, you don't see consumer prices. > > --
> Why the premium for a language that was supposed to appeal to everyone, > including non-programmers? Just questioning your mentality (in a good > sense) about this...
The people who make the standards are the Lisp vendors. They have no say in how ANSI does its business. ANSI has never, to my knowledge, expressed an ounce of care about what effect their pricing to the Lisp marketplace. As far as I've seen, they effectively just act as a "publisher", and one that expends little energy talking to its authors to find out how to position its books at that.
The Common Lisp HyperSpec (TM) was ready to go out the door over a year before it did, and most of what held it up was legality. I'm not going to get into the legal issues here, but increasingly I think I owe the public an accounting of what happened and I will take it as an action item to write something up detailing the entire sad saga.
For the purposes of this discussion, however, suffice it to say that when you see the ANSI standard overpriced, the only senses in which the LISP industry contributed to that were these:
- The standard is indeed big. We felt that was necessary to completely document the language. Languages like Scheme indeed are smaller textually but that is becuase they (a) provide less functionality and (b) provide fewer examples and (c) provide less specificiation of porting issues. Each and every one of these we felt were critical. I guess if it were shorter, the price would be lower. But then, it might not be as solid or as usable.
- The standard is, I think, readable. Not all language standards have been. Some are written in specification languages that make them not appeal directly to the public. I like to make the analogy to "traffic law" which I once had the misfortune to have to research. The case law in Massachusetts is enormous and complicated and weirdly worded and not for the faint of heart. When you learn to drive, they give you a user's guide not a copy of the traffic law. I believe ANSI's intent was that you would get a user's guide, and they were not prepared to be a supplier of a direct user commodity--especially at that size. If we had made the standard less approachable, this might not have been an issue. :-)
Personally, I think the CLHS suffices. I use it almost exclusively. For those who need portability, there are enough powerbooks out there that people can carry it around. And a powerbook with a running lisp and a CLHS is lighter than the spec! But more than that, 1150 pages (the size of the ANSI spec--I saved a little over the 1350 page drafts by careful changes to "book design" at the last minute) is still a lot of "dead tree" and even if it's not as convenient to read an online book as a paper book, I feel strongly that it's time for the community to reject paper wholesale as a way of communicating. Let the forests replenish and let someone invent the Sony walkbook.
Bottom line? The Lisp industry will sell you all kinds of books at much less than $350. Buy them to learn the language. Use the CLHS as a reference to look up the nitpicky details. ANSI is not the Lisp industry--it's just a clumsy tool the Lisp industry tried to use, with very mixed success, and it does not speak for the Lisp industry.
Oh, I realized after the fact that some reading this might not know what the Common Lisp HyperSpec (TM) is. As you could probably tell from my last post, it is not hardcopy. It is available on the web and you can download a copy for your own use or browse it at Harlequin. (There may be other mirrors, too--we don't keep track of that.)
See http://www.harlequin.com/books/HyperSpec for the download info. It takes 16MB on disk, but it's worth it if you have to deal with the spec much at all. If I do say so myself, it's a mega-cool document with 105 kilohyperlinks (<-- how often do you get to use that word? :-)
See http://www.harlequin.com/books/HyperSpec/FrontMatter/About-HyperSpec.... for information about the legal restrictions on those who do downloading. I think most people will find them entirely reasonable. They're mostly about maintaining the integrity of the document; there's no dollars involved.
The Common Lisp HyperSpec is NOT the ANSI CL spec, but it is derived from it, and is very similar (with only minor textual tweaks here and there to make it work webbed). If you need a truly official source, the ANSI spec is all you can do. But for most normal purposes, the CLHS is fine and at the price (FREE), it's hard to beat. It also comes cross-indexed against many design documents that the X3J13 subcommittee used, so you can learn about how some of the odd features of the language got to be that way.
I hope this doesn't seem like too much of a self-serving plug, but gee-- Harlequin and I tried to make this as much of a public service as we could, and I don't exactly get royalties from it, so I'm entitled to make a fuss over it once in a while, I think.
] ]> In article <33403FE5.1...@CS.Berkeley.EDU>, ]> Lewis Stiller <stil...@CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote: ]> >It apparently costs US $350.00 to buy a copy of the ANSI Lisp standard ]> >(www.ansi.org). At first I thought this was impossible, that I was ]> >misreading, but I am told that it is true. (The C standard is "only" ]> >$130.00). ]> ]> The ANSI Common Lisp standard is 1200 pages long, about 5 times the size of ]> the C standard. And since ANSI standards are a niche product, marketed to ]> businesses rather than the mass market, you don't see consumer prices. ]> -- ]Why the premium for a language that was supposed to appeal to everyone, ]including non-programmers? Just questioning your mentality (in a good ]sense) about this...
It's not *my* mentality, it's ANSI's. Their target market is businesses, not end users.
Consider their history. Do the people who use (i.e. sit on) office chairs need a copy of the ANSI standard for office chairs? Do people who write on paper need a copy of the ANSI standard for paper sizes? I'll bet you've been typing for years but don't have a copy of the ANSI standard for keyboard layout. Although these items are used heavily by the mass market, the standards are intended primarily for *manufacturers*, so that they can ensure that their products conform.
End users are not expected (by ANSI) to need to consult a language standard. They use reference books, tutorials, etc. -- Barry Margolin BBN Corporation, Cambridge, MA bar...@bbnplanet.com (BBN customers, call (800) 632-7638 option 1 for support)
> Oh, I realized after the fact that some reading this might not know > what the Common Lisp HyperSpec (TM) is. As you could probably tell > from my last post, it is not hardcopy. It is available on the web and > you can download a copy for your own use or browse it at Harlequin. > (There may be other mirrors, too--we don't keep track of that.)
> See http://www.harlequin.com/books/HyperSpec for the download info. > [...] > I hope this doesn't seem like too much of a self-serving plug, but gee-- > Harlequin and I tried to make this as much of a public service as we could, > and I don't exactly get royalties from it, so I'm entitled to make a fuss > over it once in a while, I think.
I think it deserves all the plugging and publicity it can get, plus you can tie it into Emacs' W3 interface to get online doc for Common Lisp functions, variables, etc. at a keystroke... brilliant! It certainly has my vote and my thanks to Kent and Harlequin for making this freely available.
* Guy Footring | I think it deserves all the plugging and publicity it can get, plus you | can tie it into Emacs' W3 interface to get online doc for Common Lisp | functions, variables, etc. at a keystroke... brilliant! It certainly has | my vote and my thanks to Kent and Harlequin for making this freely | available.
I wrote an interface between CLHS and the Franz, Inc. "fi" package for Emacs some time ago. it works very well for me. it can be picked up from
I know that Kent's purpose was to clarify the record and not to solicit praise, but I would like to take this opportunity to note the work that Kent did on both the ANSI spec and the HyperSpec.
The ANSI spec is indeed very well written, very clear, and very complete. Yes, there are issues enough to keep a language lawyer busy, and I have a long file of issues I'd like to someday discuss in the appropriate forum. Nonetheless, I do not believe I have ever seen a better specification.
Not having served on the committee, I may never fully appreciate Kent's personal impact. However, what I have come to be aware of in the past two years suggests that Kent's contribution to the Common Lisp literature is perhaps comparable to that of Guy Steele's.
And then there is the HyperSpec. Every Lisp user should have a bookmark to it, or better yet, dowload a copy. Barry Margolin makes the very good point that specifications are intended for implemplementers and other specific uses, and not for end users, and yet, I feel that the HyperSpec IS appropriate for the highly skilled programmers that tend to be Lisp users.
> In article <daiyanh-0204972354540...@38.11.35.140> daiy...@mindspring.com > (Daitaro Hagihara) writes:
> > In article <5hsrc7$...@pasilla.bbnplanet.com>, Barry Margolin > > <bar...@bbnplanet.com> wrote:
> > > In article <33403FE5.1...@CS.Berkeley.EDU>, > > > Lewis Stiller <stil...@CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote: > > > >It apparently costs US $350.00 to buy a copy of the ANSI Lisp standard > > > >(www.ansi.org). At first I thought this was impossible, that I was > > > >misreading, but I am told that it is true. (The C standard is "only" > > > >$130.00).
> > > The ANSI Common Lisp standard is 1200 pages long, about 5 times the size of > > > the C standard. And since ANSI standards are a niche product, marketed to > > > businesses rather than the mass market, you don't see consumer prices. > > > --
> > Why the premium for a language that was supposed to appeal to everyone, > > including non-programmers? Just questioning your mentality (in a good > > sense) about this...
> The people who make the standards are the Lisp vendors. They have no say > in how ANSI does its business. ANSI has never, to my knowledge, expressed > an ounce of care about what effect their pricing to the Lisp marketplace. > As far as I've seen, they effectively just act as a "publisher", and one > that expends little energy talking to its authors to find out how to position > its books at that.
> The Common Lisp HyperSpec (TM) was ready to go out the door over a year before > it did, and most of what held it up was legality. I'm not going to get into > the legal issues here, but increasingly I think I owe the public an accounting > of what happened and I will take it as an action item to write something up > detailing the entire sad saga.
> For the purposes of this discussion, however, suffice it to say that when you > see the ANSI standard overpriced, the only senses in which the LISP industry > contributed to that were these:
> - The standard is indeed big. We felt that was necessary to completely > document the language. Languages like Scheme indeed are smaller textually > but that is becuase they (a) provide less functionality and (b) provide > fewer examples and (c) provide less specificiation of porting issues. > Each and every one of these we felt were critical. I guess if it were > shorter, the price would be lower. But then, it might not be as solid or > as usable.
> - The standard is, I think, readable. Not all language standards have been. > Some are written in specification languages that make them not appeal > directly to the public. I like to make the analogy to "traffic law" which > I once had the misfortune to have to research. The case law in > Massachusetts is enormous and complicated and weirdly worded and not for > the faint of heart. When you learn to drive, they give you a user's guide > not a copy of the traffic law. I believe ANSI's intent was that you would > get a user's guide, and they were not prepared to be a supplier of a direct > user commodity--especially at that size. If we had made the standard > less approachable, this might not have been an issue. :-)
> Personally, I think the CLHS suffices. I use it almost exclusively. For > those who need portability, there are enough powerbooks out there that people > can carry it around. And a powerbook with a running lisp and a CLHS is > lighter than the spec! But more than that, 1150 pages (the size of the ANSI > spec--I saved a little over the 1350 page drafts by careful changes to "book > design" at the last minute) is still a lot of "dead tree" and even if it's not > as convenient to read an online book as a paper book, I feel strongly that > it's time for the community to reject paper wholesale as a way of > communicating. Let the forests replenish and let someone invent the Sony > walkbook.
> Bottom line? The Lisp industry will sell you all kinds of books at much less > than $350. Buy them to learn the language. Use the CLHS as a reference to > look up the nitpicky details. ANSI is not the Lisp industry--it's just a > clumsy tool the Lisp industry tried to use, with very mixed success, and it > does not speak for the Lisp industry.
Actually, the only part of the HyperSpec that I have trouble with is the damned
<BODY BGCOLOR="#c0c0c0">
at the start of each page. I find black text on a fairly dim gray background to be less than optimal. I wish it would just say
<BODY>
and let my browser settings do the right things for my eyes. Unfortunately, the copyright does not allow me to fix this problem without re-implementing Netscape to have user settings take preference over document settings.
* Bill Janssen | Unfortunately, the copyright does not allow me to fix this problem | without re-implementing Netscape to have user settings take preference | over document settings.
well, I find colors completely useless, so I made a minor change to /usr/X11R5/lib/X11/app-defaults/Netscape:
! Normally, the user-specified colors and backgrounds will only be used when ! viewing documents which did not specify their own colors and backgrounds. ! If this resource is set to False, then the user-specified colors and ! backgrounds will always be used, regardless of the options specified in ! the document itself. ! *documentColorsHavePriority: False
you may have to specify all the colors in the same file. if you're under the influence of Bill Gates, you may be out of luck. I don't know or care.
of course, Netscape being a mass-market software vendor, this doesn't work for <FONT COLOR="unreadable">...</FONT>. but what could you expect?
#\Erik -- I'm no longer young enough to know everything.
In article <33451166.ABD3...@elwoodcorp.com>, Howard R. Stearns <how...@elwoodcorp.com> wrote:
>Not having served on the committee, I may never fully appreciate Kent's >personal impact. However, what I have come to be aware of in the past >two years suggests that Kent's contribution to the Common Lisp >literature is perhaps comparable to that of Guy Steele's.
I *did* serve on the committee. While I don't want to slight the other members of the committee, I agree that we all owe an enormous debt to Kent. We originally had a tech writer serving as the document editor, but things didn't really start sailing until Kent took over. Not only is he an expert in the Lisp language, he was also able to make use of his programming skill to automate the production of the standard. He made extensive use of generic markup (using TeX macros); this was useful when we needed to find cross-references during the standardization process, and he later took advantage of this when translating the document into HTML (it was 90% automated).
>And then there is the HyperSpec. Every Lisp user should have a bookmark >to it, or better yet, dowload a copy. Barry Margolin makes the very >good point that specifications are intended for implemplementers and >other specific uses, and not for end users, and yet, I feel that the >HyperSpec IS appropriate for the highly skilled programmers that tend to >be Lisp users.
Just to clarify, I was not stating *my* opinion of the value of the standard, I was describing ANSI's attitude. Early language standards tended to be inscrutible (ANSI PL/I is supposed to be the prime example -- even though I was a PL/I programmer for 6 years I never saw it), and ANSI never learned better.
I have a bookmark to the HyperSpec (unfortunately, I do fairly little programming these days, and no Lisp outside my .emacs) and also to the online version of CLtL. In fact, the HTML form really makes these versions useful -- cross-references are easily followed. -- Barry Margolin BBN Corporation, Cambridge, MA bar...@bbnplanet.com (BBN customers, call (800) 632-7638 option 1 for support)
>>>>> "Erik" == Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> writes:
Erik> I wrote an interface between CLHS and the Franz, Inc. "fi" Erik> package for Emacs some time ago. it works very well for me. it Erik> can be picked up from
There is also the dpANS.info which is kind of handy for using in Emacs. I am not sure how it compares, content-wise, with the hyperspec. I don't know where my copy came from, but appears to be the same as the info package available with GCL at:
<seni...@teleport.com> writes: > >>>>> "Erik" == Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> writes:
> Erik> I wrote an interface between CLHS and the Franz, Inc. "fi" > Erik> package for Emacs some time ago. it works very well for me. it > Erik> can be picked up from
> There is also the dpANS.info which is kind of handy for using in > Emacs. I am not sure how it compares, content-wise, with the > hyperspec. I don't know where my copy came from, but appears to be > the same as the info package available with GCL at:
Both of you should make sure to get the info to Mark Kantrowitz so it can be in the Lisp FAQ if it's not. Also, you should check at the ALU home page and see if there's a "tools" listing there; if there is not, one should be created. If it is, you should add your tools.
Pawing through newsgroups, even with Deja News to help, to find info like this is just plain hard, and it's worth making sure it's indexed properly in better places.
