September 2009 - toronto-lisp - mailman3.common-lisp.net

[toronto-lisp] Definition of "System"
by David Penton 27 Sep '09

27 Sep '09

Here comes my first stranger-in-a-stange-land question. I am busy learning to use asdf. The asdf manual refers to defining "systems." It is not clear to me whether the term "system" has a formal definition in lisp, or rather is used loosely. I see that the CL ansi spec has a chapter (ch. 24) on System Construction, but this does not elucidate much (for me). For asdf purposes, does "system" mean something specific, or does it just mean a bunch of lisp bits that make up a useful chunk of software?

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Re: [toronto-lisp] Learning Lisp
by David Penton 26 Sep '09

26 Sep '09

I find the responses to my post very encouraging. I shall ask questions here when I need to do so. I have found recently that my questions tend to be about definitions - sometimes the reference material is not all that clear to me (may just be me, or the fact that I am at an early stage of learning.) Thanks everybody.

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Re: [toronto-lisp] Learning Lisp
by David Penton 26 Sep '09

26 Sep '09

Ok, great & thx. I am frustrated with a few things as I progress down my learning path. Frustration is, of course, usual and unavoidable when learning a new language. It appears to me that the effect is amplified by the fact that lisp = paradigm shift relative to algol / c languages, which is my background. Anyway, here is my query: Where should one go to ask *dumb* lisp questions? I have looked at comp.lang.lisp but it is sooooo full of spam that I don't know what to do about it. I have tried various news readers, but the spam filtering is either poor, or the documentation on setting up spam filtering is *incomprehensible*. The Google Groups archive is likewise full of spam-shit. Maybe I should ignore the spam and forge ahead? I could give examples of problems I am having, but I don't thing including them in this post is appropriate. Any suggestions? IRC or something? Does the toronto-lisp list deal with simple techical/newbie questions? TIA. - Dave -

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[toronto-lisp] Learning Lisp
by David Penton 25 Sep '09

25 Sep '09

Greetings. I am in the process of learning CL. It is a very enjoyable process. I hope to attend the next meeting in Toronto to connect with other lispers. (I am in Burlington.) How active is the group? I am a true old-timer in software/computing. I have know for years that I should turn to lisp. I am finally getting around to doing so. The experience is something like a religious conversion, I am pleased to admit. While lisp may not be the "one true way" it is starting to look like it to me. My current learning environment is emacs + slime + sblc. This is a great combo, which I use primarily on my macbook but also on my Vista machine and under ubuntu. It seems to work pretty well on all three. Eventually I will purchase a commercial CL product. I hope the group will provide some guidance in that respect. Hoping to hear from y'all.... - Dave -

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[toronto-lisp] Our compatriot Paul has been blogged! ECLM notes
by Abram Hindle 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

http://aerique.blogspot.com/2009/09/some-eclm-2009-impressions.html abram

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[toronto-lisp] ECLM
by Brian Connoy 08 Sep '09

08 Sep '09

Just want to extend our associate, some words of support at ECLM. http://weitz.de/eclm2009/ "Knock 'em dead, Paul !"

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[toronto-lisp] GitHub repo is online + meeting Tuesday Sep 1 @ Linux Caffe
by Vishvajit Singh 08 Sep '09

08 Sep '09

As promised, I've created a repository on GitHub for our club. http://github.com/vishsingh/lisp-toronto/ This will be a centralized location for us to share: - Code and slides from presentations given at meetings - Code for projects we are currently working on - Scraps of code you wish to share with the group - etc. If you are a member of the group and you've been to at least one meeting, contact me personally and I will add you as a collaborator, and you'll be able to push to the repository. (You have to have a GitHub account -- they're free.) (Note: I'm new to GitHub so let me know if I'm doing anything wrong.) Our next step will be to start working on a project. But what should it be? For now, I'll create a project-ideas.txt on the repo.. ----------- Our next meeting is coming up soon. Toronto Lisp Users Group, September Meeting: Tuesday September 1st, 6pm, at the Linux Caffe Directions: walk south of Bloor from Christie Station, until you hit Harbord Street. Here's a map to the Linux Caffe from Christie Station: http://tinyurl.com/linuxcafe-lisp-meet We're looking for volunteers for talks, discussion, and tutorials. We'd love to hear about your current projects, proposals for projects, libraries you like, issues relevant to Lisp, etc. http://www.lisptoronto.org/ Come on out! Vish

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[toronto-lisp] Concurrency
by Brian Connoy 04 Sep '09

04 Sep '09

Just stumbled across this ... http://common-lisp.net/project/eager-future/ Reckon I'd post it, considering that concurrency often gets mention at our meets. BC

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