Excuse this dumb question, but I do not know how to go about digging up all the old newsgroup postings of this newsgroup.
I assume Google is used, and I assume I better allow lots of storage and time for the download.
Can anyone suggest how I should word my Google request, and should I quote some of the terms in the request?
My reason for doing this is to cull out those posts in the past that interest me, and make some sort of huge final file containing all the posts of interest.
I am trying to get on board regarding Common Lisp, and I find the older posts to have very high educational value, far exceeding what can be found in the usual Lisp books that I have access to.
Thanks for any and all suggestions as to exactly how I should use Google for my 'learning-project'.
Mark Conrad <nos...@iam.invalid> writes: > Excuse this dumb question, but I do not know how to go about > digging up all the old newsgroup postings of this newsgroup.
> I assume Google is used, and I assume I better allow lots of > storage and time for the download.
When you are through with all of some 79000 comp.lang.lisp postings you'll be ripe for an asylum, I guess.
In article <010420031028290690%nos...@iam.invalid>, Mark Conrad <nos...@iam.invalid> wrote:
>Excuse this dumb question, but I do not know how to go about digging up >all the old newsgroup postings of this newsgroup.
>I assume Google is used, and I assume I better allow lots of storage >and time for the download.
I don't think Google provides any way to download all the postings in a batch. You'd probably have to write a script that does it.
BTW, I once did something similar to this. Back when Common Lisp was first being developed in the early 80's, the discussion took place on an Arpanet mailing list. Sometime in the mid-to-late 80's I printed out the archive of this, and read all the discussions that led to the production of CLTL.
-- Barry Margolin, barry.margo...@level3.com Genuity Managed Services, a Level(3) Company, Woburn, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.
Barry Margolin <barry.margo...@level3.com> writes: > BTW, I once did something similar to this. Back when Common Lisp was first > being developed in the early 80's, the discussion took place on an Arpanet > mailing list. Sometime in the mid-to-late 80's I printed out the archive > of this, and read all the discussions that led to the production of CLTL.
You don't have this archive still available electronically, by chance? Or know where one could get it elsewhere?
Henrik Motakef <henrik.mota...@web.de> writes: > Barry Margolin <barry.margo...@level3.com> writes:
> > BTW, I once did something similar to this. Back when Common Lisp was first > > being developed in the early 80's, the discussion took place on an Arpanet > > mailing list. Sometime in the mid-to-late 80's I printed out the archive > > of this, and read all the discussions that led to the production of CLTL.
> You don't have this archive still available electronically, by chance? > Or know where one could get it elsewhere?
>> BTW, I once did something similar to this. Back when Common Lisp was first >> being developed in the early 80's, the discussion took place on an Arpanet >> mailing list. Sometime in the mid-to-late 80's I printed out the archive >> of this, and read all the discussions that led to the production of CLTL.
>You don't have this archive still available electronically, by chance? >Or know where one could get it elsewhere?
I never had a personal electronic copy, I printed it out (it was several large binders). I held on to it across a few office moves, but eventually I tossed it. It's presumably on the backup tapes of the old MIT-AI machine, and maybe someone has those archived somewhere accessible.
-- Barry Margolin, barry.margo...@level3.com Genuity Managed Services, a Level(3) Company, Woburn, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.
> In article <87brzq7xab....@interim.henrik-motakef.de>, > Henrik Motakef <henrik.mota...@web.de> wrote: > >Barry Margolin <barry.margo...@level3.com> writes:
> >> BTW, I once did something similar to this. Back when Common Lisp was first > >> being developed in the early 80's, the discussion took place on an Arpanet > >> mailing list. Sometime in the mid-to-late 80's I printed out the archive > >> of this, and read all the discussions that led to the production of CLTL.
> >You don't have this archive still available electronically, by chance? > >Or know where one could get it elsewhere?
> I never had a personal electronic copy, I printed it out (it was several > large binders). I held on to it across a few office moves, but eventually > I tossed it. It's presumably on the backup tapes of the old MIT-AI > machine, and maybe someone has those archived somewhere accessible.
>>> BTW, I once did something similar to this. Back when Common Lisp was first >>> being developed in the early 80's, the discussion took place on an Arpanet >>> mailing list. Sometime in the mid-to-late 80's I printed out the archive >>> of this, and read all the discussions that led to the production of CLTL.
>>You don't have this archive still available electronically, by chance? >>Or know where one could get it elsewhere?
>I never had a personal electronic copy, I printed it out (it was several >large binders). I held on to it across a few office moves, but eventually >I tossed it. It's presumably on the backup tapes of the old MIT-AI >machine, and maybe someone has those archived somewhere accessible.
It's scary what kinds of things are archived from old system. One shudders at future CS archeologists plumbing the depths of newly discovered archives, trying to get a clue why CS took this turn or that. -------------------------------------------------- Thaddeus L. Olczyk, PhD Think twice, code once.
In article <87pto6vz4q....@darkstar.cartan>, Nils Goesche
<n...@cartan.de> wrote: > > Excuse this dumb question, but I do not know how to go about > > digging up all the old newsgroup postings of this newsgroup.
> > I assume Google is used, and I assume I better allow lots of > > storage and time for the download.
> When you are through with all of some 79000 comp.lang.lisp > postings you'll be ripe for an asylum, I guess.
In article <JTmia.11$af5....@paloalto-snr1.gtei.net>, Barry Margolin
<barry.margo...@level3.com> wrote: > >Excuse this dumb question, but I do not know how to go about digging up > >all the old newsgroup postings of this newsgroup.
> >I assume Google is used, and I assume I better allow lots of storage > >and time for the download.
> I don't think Google provides any way to download all the postings in a > batch. You'd probably have to write a script that does it.
Thanks for forewarning me about about the necessity for creating a script.
If I have difficulty creating a workable script, I will just download the postings manually, starting with the most recent postings.
Mark Conrad <nos...@iam.invalid> writes: > Wow, did not realize there were that many threads..
And be sure, once you're done with comp.lang.lisp that you then deal with all the net.lang.lisp postings. ;-) You only have 21 years of catching up to do.
Here's a starting point. Perhaps *the* starting point:
The intellectual level needed for system design is in general grossly underestimated. I am convinced more than ever that this type of work is very difficult and that every effort to do it with other than the best people is doomed to either failure or moderate success at enormous expense. --Edsger Dijkstra
Thaddeus L Olczyk <olc...@interaccess.com> writes:
> It's scary what kinds of things are archived from old system. > One shudders at future CS archeologists plumbing the depths > of newly discovered archives, trying to get a clue why CS took this > turn or that.
I am particularly worried about the paper records. They will eventually fade, tear, or get thrown out.
In the far distant future, looking back in time at the beginning of computer science will be like looking at the distant end of the Universe through the Hubble telescope. By examining early web archives and Deja News records, we'll be able to get really, really close to the Big Bang that started it all. But the last few decades, from 1994 and before going back another 3 or 4 decades, will be missing because it was on paper. So the true nature of the Informational Big Bang will elude people.
This is one reason I freely post my imperfect recollections of the obscure corner of the older times that I was privvy to here on the relevant newsgroup, so there is at least the echo of what happened from one person's point of view. And I assume others do likewise here and elsewhere, to add dimensionality to that kind of record.
But I see a great deal of historical revisionism that comes from people with fading memories, people with out of control egos, and people of good intent who are just confused or misled by others' accounts and who repeat the wrong information until it sounds like fact. What is really needed to counter this is not debate but first hand subjectmatter. I've done what I can, when I can afford the time, to take my own paper records and put them online. I've seen others do likewise. But there is still much to do, and anyone else with personal sets of hardcopy should do what they can to preserve the historical record into electronic media for the sake of History.
>>>>> "Kent" == Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
Kent> fact. What is really needed to counter this is not debate but first Kent> hand subjectmatter. I've done what I can, when I can afford the time, Kent> to take my own paper records and put them online. I've seen others do Kent> likewise. But there is still much to do, and anyone else with Kent> personal sets of hardcopy should do what they can to preserve the Kent> historical record into electronic media for the sake of History.
Even that can be hard. Technology is changing so fast that electronic media of today has a good chance not working in the relatively near future. A serious problem that I think people are looking at.
No, I was talking about something that filled several hundred sheets of paper when I printed it 2-up double-sided.
-- Barry Margolin, barry.margo...@level3.com Genuity Managed Services, a Level(3) Company, Woburn, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.
In article <4nel4lf2vo....@edgedsp4.rtp.ericsson.se>, Raymond Toy <t...@rtp.ericsson.se> wrote:
>>>>>> "Kent" == Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
> Kent> fact. What is really needed to counter this is not debate but first > Kent> hand subjectmatter. I've done what I can, when I can afford the time, > Kent> to take my own paper records and put them online. I've seen others do > Kent> likewise. But there is still much to do, and anyone else with > Kent> personal sets of hardcopy should do what they can to preserve the > Kent> historical record into electronic media for the sake of History.
>Even that can be hard. Technology is changing so fast that electronic >media of today has a good chance not working in the relatively near >future. A serious problem that I think people are looking at.
Heard what I think was an April Fools story last night on NPR, about a group at the Library of Congress working on archiving all their sound recordings onto 78 RPM phonograph records. The premise was that although this may not be the highest fidelity, it's the most durable medium. Technology may make CD's, DVD's, and MP3's unreadable in the future, but you can listen to a phonograph simply by putting a pin in the groove and turning it with your hand. So even if we nuke ourselves back to the stone age, we'll be able to recover these recordings.
-- Barry Margolin, barry.margo...@level3.com Genuity Managed Services, a Level(3) Company, Woburn, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.
Raymond Toy <t...@rtp.ericsson.se> writes: > >>>>> "Kent" == Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
> Kent> fact. What is really needed to counter this is not debate > Kent> but first hand subjectmatter. I've done what I can, when > Kent> I can afford the time, to take my own paper records and > Kent> put them online. I've seen others do likewise. But there > Kent> is still much to do, and anyone else with personal sets of > Kent> hardcopy should do what they can to preserve the > Kent> historical record into electronic media for the sake of > Kent> History.
> Even that can be hard. Technology is changing so fast that electronic > media of today has a good chance not working in the relatively near > future. A serious problem that I think people are looking at.
I am willing to trust that anything stored in today's documented media (e.g., HTML or GIF or PostScript/PDF) will be accessible to future historians.
Also, even if they lose the specs, reverse engineering HTML won't be that difficult, which is why it's my medium of choice.
And, for that matter, web crawlers exhaustively archiving todays' internet for posterity have probably also accidentally archived some bootlegged copies of the programs necessary to read PDF, etc. ;)
Which is not to say that creating enduring formats don't have a purpose, but I really think HTML is, accidentally or not, a pretty good one.
Joe Marshall <j...@ccs.neu.edu> writes: > Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
> > I am particularly worried about the paper records. They will eventually > > fade, tear, or get thrown out.
> Paper records last longer than electronic ones.
Individually, probably. If all of civilization destroys itself, it won't matter. But there's a lot of archiving/replication/spidercaching going on such that I think things that exist for a long time in public view are pretty safe.
Not that I don't make personal backups of my stuff onto more than one CD-ROM (in case of scratches and such) and periodically move them to a safe deposit box geographically separated from my house by a large distance...
In article <sfwd6k4ga24....@shell01.TheWorld.com>, Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> wrote:
>Raymond Toy <t...@rtp.ericsson.se> writes: >> Even that can be hard. Technology is changing so fast that electronic >> media of today has a good chance not working in the relatively near >> future. A serious problem that I think people are looking at.
>I am willing to trust that anything stored in today's documented media >(e.g., HTML or GIF or PostScript/PDF) will be accessible to future >historians.
>Also, even if they lose the specs, reverse engineering HTML won't be >that difficult, which is why it's my medium of choice.
I don't think it's the document format that's the main problem, it's the storage technology. I think you'd have to go on a long hunt to be able to read a DECtape these days, and even 9-track tape drives are pretty scarce.
-- Barry Margolin, barry.margo...@level3.com Genuity Managed Services, a Level(3) Company, Woburn, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.
In article <m3pto5to7k....@localhost.localdomain>, Peter Seibel
<pe...@javamonkey.com> wrote: > > Wow, did not realize there were that many threads..
> And be sure, once you're done with comp.lang.lisp that you then deal > with all the net.lang.lisp postings. ;-) You only have 21 years of > catching up to do.
You got that right.
It might be worth my effort to spend time trying to automate my preferences as to what posts to save versus what posts to toss out.
That may not be possible, however, given the present state of the art in getting software to "guess" what might be of interest to me.
Lots of times pearls of wisdom are buried in the text of a post, hard for a human to extract, let alone a computer script.
Now, a puzzle for anyone out there ;-)
How many "extremely valuable" old posts would any given person have to collect in order to make sure he extracted everything of interest to himself - - - probably an impossibly large number of posts.
This just might be the age when we should specialize our knowledge, like the medical profession does.<g>
In article <vcd65pxyssd....@tarski.math.bme.hu>, Simon András
<asi...@math.bme.hu> wrote: > I think you'd be better off spending your time writing the script in > Lisp, using e.g. the http client functions of aserve.
Thanks for that tip - I assume "aserve" is a Common Lisp term.
I have been inactive in Lisp for many years, so look on myself as a rank novice at present, so please excuse the ignorance on my part.
Barry Margolin <barry.margo...@level3.com> writes: > In article <sfwd6k4ga24....@shell01.TheWorld.com>, > Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> wrote: > >Also, even if they lose the specs, reverse engineering HTML > >won't be that difficult, which is why it's my medium of > >choice.
> I don't think it's the document format that's the main problem, > it's the storage technology.
Right -- if they could decipher texts from ancient Egypt, PDF should be managable, too :-)
> I think you'd have to go on a long hunt to be able to read a > DECtape these days, and even 9-track tape drives are pretty > scarce.
But I bet they last longer than a number of paperback books of mine which, printed on non-acid-free paper, practically burn away while I watch.
Regards, -- Nils Gösche Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.
Raymond Toy <t...@rtp.ericsson.se> writes: >>>>>> "Kent" == Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
> Kent> fact. What is really needed to counter this is not debate but first > Kent> hand subjectmatter. I've done what I can, when I can afford the time, > Kent> to take my own paper records and put them online. I've seen others do > Kent> likewise. But there is still much to do, and anyone else with > Kent> personal sets of hardcopy should do what they can to preserve the > Kent> historical record into electronic media for the sake of History.
> Even that can be hard. Technology is changing so fast that electronic > media of today has a good chance not working in the relatively near > future. A serious problem that I think people are looking at.
