Perhaps we should add to the charter, "Contribute to benefit the Lisp community at large," as a secondary mission. Would those of you on this list who have been quiet mind to comment? Do you agree with the proposed minimal charter? (i.e., is the above additional clause redundant due to it being implied by the very existence of this a group?) What are your expectations and desires for a group? Thanks, -Daniel
On 6/12/06, Daniel J Pezely <djp06@speakeasy.net> wrote:
Perhaps we should add to the charter, "Contribute to benefit the Lisp community at large," as a secondary mission.
Would those of you on this list who have been quiet mind to comment?
Agreed.
Do you agree with the proposed minimal charter? (i.e., is the above additional clause redundant due to it being implied by the very existence of this a group?)
No, it's not redundant. User groups exist for a variety of reasons.
What are your expectations and desires for a group?
A stronger base for business actions would be welcome. I'm ridiculously busy right now in a startup where I can use whatever tools I want, but I have severe adaptability constraints and Lisp or Smalltalk (let alone Slate) only fit in as scripting / glue / domain languages. I've started a Lisp-based company before which got nowhere due to IP and business-related issues. I think that business actions require far more attention to people than to technology, and I can usually make an effective case for the right tool when needed. Anything that would improve that would be welcome but it's the least of my worries. One other thing that might be effective is involving UW students in various capacities, Google Summer-of-Code style, by making proposals for undergrad/grad projects for open source improvement. Even without SoC sponsorship, academic credit can be attributed. I've considered doing so for Slate (and been invited to do so) but have not had the time to focus on it. -- -Brian T. Rice
Daniel J Pezely wrote:
Perhaps we should add to the charter, "Contribute to benefit the Lisp community at large," as a secondary mission.
Would those of you on this list who have been quiet mind to comment?
I'm not the quiet one but I can't help comment. :-) I hope this doesn't scare anyone into not commenting. Please someone else feel free.
Do you agree with the proposed minimal charter? (i.e., is the above additional clause redundant due to it being implied by the very existence of this a group?)
It's not actually redundant. LispSea needs a strong focus on promoting Lisp in the Seattle metro area. So then there's the question of whether heaping secondary foci on top of that is a good idea or not. I'm inclined to say it isn't. In the limit, if you have a primary focus, but then invoke Subfocus #2, and Subfocus #3, and Subfocus #4, etc. then you really don't have a focus anymore. On the other hand, there's the issue of what you actually get out of people, and what they find appealing. Drumbeating on a Primary Focus doesn't necessarily cause anyone to do it. Still, an organization's leadership should probably get focused on the primary task. I see a difference between people exercising leadership, people who actively participate but don't lead, and people who are just showing up to find out what's going on.
What are your expectations and desires for a group?
I'd like to pursue a primary focus of promoting Lisp in Seattle. That's what I previously tried to do with SeaFunc, although it was for Functional Programming rather than a specific toolchain. That proved to be an Achilles heel. We did succeed in creating a sustainable group that slowly grows. We even got a little bit of networking and job interest going, in part because there's such a big clump of Amazonians in SeaFunc and they do some language experimentation. But energy for promoting FP as a business model isn't there. I don't need a local group to work on improving Lisp. I already do that, to the extent that Chicken Scheme counts as a Lisp. Not many people help me in that task. The ones that do, I've established relations on the internet with. Those would be the primary Chicken Scheme author, Felix Winkelman, and the primary CMake author, William Hoffman. Without that level of commitment and buy-in, I doubt I would have stuck with it. There's been interest in Chicken Scheme in SeaFunc, but I'm still the only one really doing it as far as I know. I haven't gotten a good dog and pony show together to convert people yet. I am reminded of Jeff Henrickson's current position in SeaFunc as the OCaml "odd man out." OCaml used to have multiple followers, but I defected for Bigloo Scheme due to FFIs, and Francois Rouaix lives in Issaquah now. I think the Gardeners project is an excellent idea in principle. In practice, really getting things done requires really specific partnerships. People who are capable and commit time and energy. I just don't expect to find those locally. Very few people have the time and energy to do all that stuff, so it's important to cast a wide net on the Internet. The dirty little secret of open source is it's not about the software, it's about the people. When I read the Gardeners announcements, with people proposing various projects, I'm surprised that anyone responds and takes them seriously. I'll be even more surprised if things actually get done. It seems some things are in fact getting done, I've been analyzing the track record of Gardeners for bringing projects to fruition. It also seems like a lot of projects won't make it past the "That would be nice!" stage and they're a waste of time. I've been trying to do these kinds of business, promotional, and technical projects for exotic programming languages for 3 years now, with a strong focus on improving Chicken Scheme in the past 9 months. I feel I can say this. Now, if I got lucky and met someone locally that really was a good partner for accomplishing X Y Z, that would be cool. I did go through a Common Lisp booster phase, but I found that FFIs are all a law unto themselves, there's nothing Common about them. So for game development I was no better off than in the Scheme universe. Good open source implementations were available for Windows and not for Common Lisp. Corman Lisp is inexpensive on Windows, but I wasn't confident in its future. Maybe I'd change my tune if the Windows SBCL port shapes up, but I'm not waiting and I've already committed 9 months to making Chicken Scheme kick ass. I bet you SBCL doesn't have a CMake build, for instance, and I'm not going to write one for them just yet. Nine months is a lot of time to try to bang something into shape, and I'm going to leverage my investment before seeking new investments. I'm a game developer. I'm stalking the game industry. If anyone's interested in OpenGL stuff on either Scheme or Common Lisp, give me a holler. Perhaps Collada file formats is a middle ground. Cheers, Brandon Van Every
The charter sounds great. Minimal is good. I'd mostly like to see an opportunity to talk with people about Lisp and specific problems or bugs in my Lisp code. Especially I want to talk about configuration and library issues since these are areas that wise people are hesitant to comment candidly on in online forums and web pages. The key phrase, "...but I wouldn't do it that way." is much more often heard in person than in online forums. As someone mentioned, some kind of "open hacking night" would be really great.
Would those of you on this list who have been quiet mind to comment?
Do you agree with the proposed minimal charter? (i.e., is the above additional clause redundant due to it being implied by the very existence of this a group?)
What are your expectations and desires for a group?
Thanks, -Daniel
I have no problem with the additional statement. I actually prefer it to most of the charter and would put it first. I have no strong problem with the first statement of the charter, as currently updated on the site: "The purpose of this group is to promote, nurture & expand Lisp in Seattle. In addition, we contribute to benefit the Lisp community at large." I do find that I am turned off completely by the definition of "promotion." I am not interested in "selling" anything to anybody, especially businesses, who have enough trouble with everybody trying to sell them something. I think of promotion in the sense it is used in the charter of non-profit organizations that promote science and education in some discipline. So I just ignore all of the traffic and discussion about selling Lisp. I am not interested in that business. I will follow this list because of the crossover connection with SeaFunc, but I don't subscribe to this approach to advocacy of a good thing. If the only discussion is about promotion in the sense defined in the charter, I will eventually unsubscribe for lack of interest. - Dennis Dennis E. Hamilton ------------------ The Miser Project / Numbering Peano / Orcmid's Lair mailto:Dennis.Hamilton@acm.org | gsm:+1-206.779.9430 http://miser-theory.info/astraendo/pn http://orcmid.com/blog -----Original Message----- From: seattle-bounces@common-lisp.net [mailto:seattle-bounces@common-lisp.net] On Behalf Of Daniel J Pezely Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 11:02 To: seattle@common-lisp.net Subject: [LispSea] charter Perhaps we should add to the charter, "Contribute to benefit the Lisp community at large," as a secondary mission. Would those of you on this list who have been quiet mind to comment? Do you agree with the proposed minimal charter? (i.e., is the above additional clause redundant due to it being implied by the very existence of this a group?) What are your expectations and desires for a group? [ ... ]
This community addition takes precedence over the draft itself in my opinion but then again I don't live in Seattle ;-) Personally, I don't have any interest in de-clawing Lisp for business consumption by using marketing primarily. There is definitely value in marketing but this should come as a result of a 'killer app/s' being written and used (i.e. Rails, Yahoo Store). Marketing should not be the primary effort but a side effect/ effort. Those who want to learn Lisp could find guidance in the language and practices by attending local meetings. They would also have the option of becoming involved in a community project. The project could speak volumes to business if it was a success. Another great side effect would be that usable frameworks could be extracted from such an undertaking which in turn benefit the community at large. Building a web app for the LispSea community to 'get things done' is a good place to start. I'm willing to take this on and/or contribute a considerable amount of time... On Jun 12, 2006, at 11:02 AM, Daniel J Pezely wrote:
Perhaps we should add to the charter, "Contribute to benefit the Lisp community at large," as a secondary mission.
Would those of you on this list who have been quiet mind to comment?
Do you agree with the proposed minimal charter? (i.e., is the above additional clause redundant due to it being implied by the very existence of this a group?)
What are your expectations and desires for a group?
Thanks, -Daniel
_______________________________________________ seattle mailing list seattle@common-lisp.net http://common-lisp.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seattle
Justin Grant wrote:
Personally, I don't have any interest in de-clawing Lisp for business consumption by using marketing primarily. There is definitely value in marketing but this should come as a result of a 'killer app/s' being written and used (i.e. Rails, Yahoo Store). Marketing should not be the primary effort but a side effect/effort.
I'm sympathetic to that point of view, which I'd call "proof in the pudding." I feel my only recourse in the game industry is to make a great game, make it with Chicken Scheme, make lotsa $$$$$$ on it, and then tell people what I did. If I still think it's important or profitable to tell people what I did. Some people, once they achieve success, become very quiet about how they got there, lest someone else take it from them! However, to say "should not" is to deny oneself the tools of the Consultant. A solution doesn't have to be "killer" to be a good solution. How often are Java solutions "killer?" Yet there are many Java solutions, because Java is well promoted.
Those who want to learn Lisp could find guidance in the language and practices by attending local meetings. They would also have the option of becoming involved in a community project. The project could speak volumes to business if it was a success. Another great side effect would be that usable frameworks could be extracted from such an undertaking which in turn benefit the community at large.
One thing SeaFunc doesn't do, and one reason why I think SeaFunc has a stable upwards growth curve. We don't say to people, "Please do more work!" People have their own jobs and their own projects. I'm all for networking people who want to do projects. I'm all for offering organizational resources that help them coordinate that sort of thing - I'll have to add Darcs to my list of interests. But I would hate to see LispSea perceived as "that place where everyone wants to sign you up for a project." It would drive people away. It's a matter of handling and framing rather than substance. It's a matter of, say, not Chartering oneself as "we're here to do all these projects, that's our mission." A recent Seattle AI group folded because of this thing, as far as I know. They were all about, "Gee, let's have this big community project to work on!" I was like, geez, I don't need more work.
Building a web app for the LispSea community to 'get things done' is a good place to start. I'm willing to take this on and/or contribute a considerable amount of time...
Now that's really the gold of a group. People who say, "Hey, I am doing / will do this. Who's joining me?" And even better: people who go off and do it anyways when the crickets chirp. I always feel bad when web infrastructure comes up, because I know it's important, but I really have no web skills nor desire to have them. At some point I will work on the slick LispSea 3D demos to assuage my guilty conscience. Cheers, Brandon Van Every
When can you start on the LispSea 3D demos ? On Jun 12, 2006, at 7:23 PM, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
Justin Grant wrote:
Personally, I don't have any interest in de-clawing Lisp for business consumption by using marketing primarily. There is definitely value in marketing but this should come as a result of a 'killer app/s' being written and used (i.e. Rails, Yahoo Store). Marketing should not be the primary effort but a side effect/effort.
I'm sympathetic to that point of view, which I'd call "proof in the pudding." I feel my only recourse in the game industry is to make a great game, make it with Chicken Scheme, make lotsa $$$$$$ on it, and then tell people what I did. If I still think it's important or profitable to tell people what I did. Some people, once they achieve success, become very quiet about how they got there, lest someone else take it from them!
However, to say "should not" is to deny oneself the tools of the Consultant. A solution doesn't have to be "killer" to be a good solution. How often are Java solutions "killer?" Yet there are many Java solutions, because Java is well promoted.
Those who want to learn Lisp could find guidance in the language and practices by attending local meetings. They would also have the option of becoming involved in a community project. The project could speak volumes to business if it was a success. Another great side effect would be that usable frameworks could be extracted from such an undertaking which in turn benefit the community at large.
One thing SeaFunc doesn't do, and one reason why I think SeaFunc has a stable upwards growth curve. We don't say to people, "Please do more work!" People have their own jobs and their own projects. I'm all for networking people who want to do projects. I'm all for offering organizational resources that help them coordinate that sort of thing - I'll have to add Darcs to my list of interests. But I would hate to see LispSea perceived as "that place where everyone wants to sign you up for a project." It would drive people away. It's a matter of handling and framing rather than substance. It's a matter of, say, not Chartering oneself as "we're here to do all these projects, that's our mission."
A recent Seattle AI group folded because of this thing, as far as I know. They were all about, "Gee, let's have this big community project to work on!" I was like, geez, I don't need more work.
Building a web app for the LispSea community to 'get things done' is a good place to start. I'm willing to take this on and/or contribute a considerable amount of time...
Now that's really the gold of a group. People who say, "Hey, I am doing / will do this. Who's joining me?" And even better: people who go off and do it anyways when the crickets chirp.
I always feel bad when web infrastructure comes up, because I know it's important, but I really have no web skills nor desire to have them. At some point I will work on the slick LispSea 3D demos to assuage my guilty conscience.
Cheers, Brandon Van Every
_______________________________________________ seattle mailing list seattle@common-lisp.net http://common-lisp.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seattle
Justin Grant wrote:
When can you start on the LispSea 3D demos ?
When I have the Chicken Scheme CMake build working properly, then an OpenGL binding, and have also finished the signature gathering season in Washington. Realistically? 1 month from now. I gotta disappear to Yakima, perhaps as soon as tomorrow afternoon. I got burned out on signature gathering for the past month, lost a LOT of income because it was the peak of the season. But I made major milestones on the CMake build, to the point that it's 95% done. Got more amped about programming and recuperated from signature burnout. So now I have to hit the Walmarts and make up my slack. Such is life when one doesn't get paid to program! It will have to be Chicken Scheme demos, for now. It will also have to be procedural content, programmed by hand by me. Dealing with 3D model imports of any kind, is beyond the scope of what I'm personally going to take on right now. With a partner providing that capability, that would change. Common Lisp demos are also beyond my scope right now. First I'd need to see SBCL working decently on Windows. I know there's Corman Lisp, but I'm not gonna fork over for it, given the overwhelming amount of work I've put into getting Chicken Scheme up to snuff. I think Scheme, and particularly Chicken Scheme, is probably better for embedding a language into a game anyways. Not that I want to do 2 language development, I rather despise that programming model, but I think it's what other game developers will realistically pay attention to. My interest in Common Lisp is merely whether I can get paid, and ancilliary concerns like do CL demos create a job market. I'm not prepared to do an OpenGL binding for Common Lisp either, not for awhile at any rate, so I hope SBCL has a usable one. I haven't paid attention to CL C FFI bugaboos lately. 9 months ago, I said, "To heck with that!" and went with Chicken Scheme. For Windows, it was the right choice at the time. Caveat: if out-of-state signature gathering looks lucrative and not politically objectionable (I won't do gay-bashing measures), I may go do that. If by some freak accident I have paying programming work, that will affect my priorities. But I anticipate that 1 month from now, I'll be working on the OpenGL stage of my conquest plan. Cheers, Brandon Van Every
participants (6)
-
Brandon J. Van Every -
Brian Rice -
Daniel J Pezely -
Dennis E. Hamilton -
Ethan Herdrick -
Justin Grant