Common Lisp the Language Three

[Hero Doug]

I came across this post today. I like the main idea of the post, specifically because it has the opportunity to be more than just talk.

This idea is really in its infancy right now, but with some support we can at the very least develop a nice tango or boost like library for Common Lisp.

I'm just wondering what the people here think.

Edit:

This isn't my project, it's the work of another, and as stated above, it's just in its planning stages. So if you like the idea, if you also think having a well tested, designed, and portable library would benifit the Lisp community, then join the mailing list and get involved.

Even on this very forum there have been numerous people who have called for this very thing, now it's here.

[Jasper]

If you don't know what to say(or are you chatting on the site itself?), let me additionally ask: what libraries would you want in such be standard?

Tbh, i don't use much of the type of library they'd want to standardize. I do frequently use iterate. Anaphora was suggested to me, when i asked about whether any library had #'if-use, #'if-with #'when-with macros. The macros names of anaphora are awful, which why i still use my own macros. Alexandria i don't use currently, but should check again, i don't get why it doesn't have #'setf- and does have #'maxf, #'minf, since with #'setf- (setf- min to-set other..), (setf- max to-set other...) would express more that you modify to the maximum of it, and other values.(And this concept applies to other functions too.) Alexandria does already have just about the same goal a standard library has though.

defclass* might be a good idea, CLOS notation for classes can get rather tedious.. haven't used that either though, it's not that tedious, besides, specifying data structures is like daydreaming about what could be.

A library treating strings vectors and lists as sequences, and plists, assoc lists and hash tables as dictionaries, where the different implementations of the same thing are chosen when you chose the type, would be handy too. I mean, the implementations are only different for optimalization, so the choice which one it is should involve as little source code as possible. Dunno if it already exists though.

[gugamilare]

Well, you can bet I'm all for it. If someone wants to add new cool features to my favorite programming language or enhancing the existing ones, I surely have nothing against it. It will be sad if things don't work out as they are expected to, but, in the worst case, things will keep the way they are, so I think we have nothing to lose

But a personal advice: don't keep too much expectations on it, and don't stop programming in CL while waiting for the ClTl3 to achieve something. This is not the first time someone attempts to modify and creating new standard for CL, and all other attempts have failed. But, as the human I am, I still have hope that it will work and in a couple of years we have a brand new standard implementations that supports threads, sockets, extensible streams and many other things in a uniform way.

[Hero Doug]

If you don't know what to say(or are you chatting on the site itself?), let me additionally ask: what libraries would you want in such be standard?

The article I linked to here explains it all.

Someone (not I) is proposing a project not to "create _the_ standard, but 'a standard" library "that includes the features modern lisp programmers have deemed necessary."

Further, the post notes "In most cases, various implementations and existing libraries already provide these features, we simply wish to codify and document them in order to promote portability and enable widespread distribution and use of Common Lisp code."

I've updated the first post to better reflect this and make a better call out to people.

It's all in the planning stages right now, but one thing that people on the list seem to agree upon is starting small and working up.

Alexandria does seem to have somewhat similar goals, but I think CLtL3 wants to go a step further and try to gain the support of the vendors and try get them involved in the project. If they succeed then the language can evolve to address its current problems (threading and FFI for example).

This is not the first time someone attempts to modify and creating new standard for CL, and all other attempts have failed. But, as the human I am, I still have hope that it will work and in a couple of years we have a brand new standard implementations that supports threads, sockets, extensible streams and many other things in a uniform way.

Same here, hopefully some people will jump on board and help out.