From DKICK1 at motorola.com  Thu Mar  3 18:08:17 2005
From: DKICK1 at motorola.com (Kick Damien-DKICK1)
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 12:08:17 -0600 
Subject: [chicago-lisp] Upcoming MAICS
Message-ID: <8E4E38BF6D087F4488E80ABAACA2F3F4B2A608@il27exm02.cig.mot.com>

Has anyone been thinking about attending the 2005 MAICS <http://www.maics.us/call_for_papers.htm <http://www.maics.us/call_for_papers.htm> >?  I would imagine that Brian would already have plans to attend <smile>.  Brian, I didn't see any information about registration <http://www.maics.us/registration.htm <http://www.maics.us/registration.htm> > available.  The page was blank.  Do you know anything about the MAICS this year?

--
Damien Kick 

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From ssrat at mailbag.com  Sat Mar  5 17:18:41 2005
From: ssrat at mailbag.com (David Douthitt)
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 11:18:41 -0600
Subject: [chicago-lisp] Hello!
Message-ID: <4229E9F1.8090405@mailbag.com>

Finding out about this list (and this group) turned out to be a 
challenge :-(

The Association of Lisp User's (ALU) web site doesn't list any 
information about the "Lispers of Chicago."

However, there _is_ a Greater Chicago Autocad User's Group 
(incorporating AutoLisp) at http://www.gcaug.com/ and a North Suburban 
Chicago Scheme Meetup Group at http://lisp.meetup.com/41/about/ .

I've been trying to learn LISP for quite some time (started learning 
during the latter days of MACLISP ;-) but never quite got over the 
"hump" that comes in most learning curves.  I think I'm just about there 
- and finding more than ever what joy LISP can be.

My biggest complaint with LISP and LISP learning materials in particular 
was this: the materials show examples of how to write programs to 
compute Fibonnacci numbers, or primes, or how to write a LISP interpreter.

However, they don't show you how to write a program to (for example) 
sort a file and write it back to disk - or to act as a terminal program 
- or how to interact with a SQL database - or how to read from the 
passwrod file.  In short, anything that interacts with the outside world 
is ignored by such luminaries as Winston and Horn's LISP book.

I have both the first edition (using MACLISP) and the third edition 
(using Common LISP).

I look forward to becoming more proficient in LISP and to the next 
meeting of the LISP Chicago group.  Since any part of Chicago is some 
distance for me, it matters not where - as long as I don't have to be 
afraid to be there after dark ;-)

-- 
David Douthitt
UNIX System Administrator
Linux+, LPIC-1, RHCE
HP-UX, Unixware, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD
Member: ACM, USENIX/SAGE


From bmastenbrook at comcast.net  Sat Mar  5 17:57:01 2005
From: bmastenbrook at comcast.net (Brian Mastenbrook)
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 11:57:01 -0600
Subject: [chicago-lisp] Hello!
In-Reply-To: <4229E9F1.8090405@mailbag.com>
References: <4229E9F1.8090405@mailbag.com>
Message-ID: <80b764714c62b77e27759b108910d42f@comcast.net>


On Mar 5, 2005, at 11:18 AM, David Douthitt wrote:

> Finding out about this list (and this group) turned out to be a 
> challenge :-(
>
> The Association of Lisp User's (ALU) web site doesn't list any 
> information about the "Lispers of Chicago."
>
> However, there _is_ a Greater Chicago Autocad User's Group 
> (incorporating AutoLisp) at http://www.gcaug.com/ and a North Suburban 
> Chicago Scheme Meetup Group at http://lisp.meetup.com/41/about/ .
>
> I've been trying to learn LISP for quite some time (started learning 
> during the latter days of MACLISP ;-) but never quite got over the 
> "hump" that comes in most learning curves.  I think I'm just about 
> there - and finding more than ever what joy LISP can be.
>
> My biggest complaint with LISP and LISP learning materials in 
> particular was this: the materials show examples of how to write 
> programs to compute Fibonnacci numbers, or primes, or how to write a 
> LISP interpreter.
>
> However, they don't show you how to write a program to (for example) 
> sort a file and write it back to disk - or to act as a terminal 
> program - or how to interact with a SQL database - or how to read from 
> the passwrod file.  In short, anything that interacts with the outside 
> world is ignored by such luminaries as Winston and Horn's LISP book.
>
> I have both the first edition (using MACLISP) and the third edition 
> (using Common LISP).
>
> I look forward to becoming more proficient in LISP and to the next 
> meeting of the LISP Chicago group.  Since any part of Chicago is some 
> distance for me, it matters not where - as long as I don't have to be 
> afraid to be there after dark ;-)

Hi David,

Thanks for the experience. The Common Lisp community moves rapidly 
these days, and you may not find it as impractical (ha!) as it used to 
be. For starters, we have discovered lowercase letters, and write 
"Lisp" or "Common Lisp" (abbreviated to CL) :-)

I would suggest you look at this guide to getting set up to learn 
Common Lisp: http://www.unmutual.info/startingwithcl.html . The book 
that is recommended there, Practical Common Lisp ( 
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ ), is quite an excellent text and 
available both in an upcoming hardcopy version and in full text online.

If you start with these resources I can pretty much promise that 
learning modern CL will be enjoyable and very practical. I certainly 
find it to be so; there's a lot of activity in the community and a lot 
of new developments that are very exciting. If you are ever on IRC, the 
channel #lisp on irc.freenode.net is a good place to ask questions. You 
can often find me there as "chandler", but don't be afraid to ask a 
question to the whole channel.

I'm still planning to set up a next meeting with some 
mini-presentations but I haven't had a chance to get it set up yet. It 
seems like there is some more interest now, so I'll go ahead and start 
investigating.

The next meeting will be announced here and on Planet Lisp, which you 
should also be reading daily: http://planet.lisp.org/

Welcome and I hope you enjoy learning and exploring!
--
Brian Mastenbrook
bmastenb at cs.indiana.edu
http://cs.indiana.edu/~bmastenb/



From bdowning at lavos.net  Sat Mar  5 17:59:40 2005
From: bdowning at lavos.net (Brian Downing)
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 11:59:40 -0600
Subject: [chicago-lisp] Hello!
In-Reply-To: <4229E9F1.8090405@mailbag.com>;
	from ssrat@mailbag.com on Sat, Mar 05, 2005 at 11:18:41AM -0600
References: <4229E9F1.8090405@mailbag.com>
Message-ID: <20050305115940.N17865@lavos.net>

On Sat, Mar 05, 2005 at 11:18:41AM -0600, David Douthitt wrote:
> My biggest complaint with LISP and LISP learning materials in particular 
> was this: the materials show examples of how to write programs to 
> compute Fibonnacci numbers, or primes, or how to write a LISP interpreter.
> 
> However, they don't show you how to write a program to (for example) 
> sort a file and write it back to disk - or to act as a terminal program 
> - or how to interact with a SQL database - or how to read from the 
> passwrod file.  In short, anything that interacts with the outside world 
> is ignored by such luminaries as Winston and Horn's LISP book.

Welcome,

How about a web-based MP3 browser with Shoutcast server?

Practical Common Lisp:  http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
Also available in dead-tree form very soon.

(Also, http://www.cliki.net/, a CL Wiki, and
http://www.common-lisp.net/, a sourceforge-alike for useful CL
projects.)

-bcd
-- 
*** Brian Downing <bdowning at lavos dot net> 


From ssrat at mailbag.com  Sat Mar  5 18:10:08 2005
From: ssrat at mailbag.com (David Douthitt)
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 12:10:08 -0600
Subject: [chicago-lisp] Hello!
In-Reply-To: <80b764714c62b77e27759b108910d42f@comcast.net>
References: <4229E9F1.8090405@mailbag.com>
	<80b764714c62b77e27759b108910d42f@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <4229F600.2090009@mailbag.com>

Brian Mastenbrook wrote:
> Thanks for the experience. The Common Lisp community moves rapidly these 
> days, and you may not find it as impractical (ha!) as it used to be. For 
> starters, we have discovered lowercase letters, and write "Lisp" or 
> "Common Lisp" (abbreviated to CL) :-)

I still can't bring myself quite to using Lisp (instead of LISP) ;-)

> I would suggest you look at this guide to getting set up to learn Common 
> Lisp: http://www.unmutual.info/startingwithcl.html . The book that is 
> recommended there, Practical Common Lisp ( 
> http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ ), is quite an excellent text and 
> available both in an upcoming hardcopy version and in full text online.

I'm familiar with that; I hadn't realized how far along he had gotten now...

I have "On Lisp", and "The Common Lisp Cookbook", as well as the printed 
Common Lisp Specifications (green book, outdated, pre-standard).  I 
never realized how readable a standard could be....

> If you start with these resources I can pretty much promise that 
> learning modern CL will be enjoyable and very practical.

Best thing is to get a LISP and start hacking on it.  I picked up over 
the years PLISP for the Apple II and TI PC-Scheme - and finally clisp 
and SBCL.  I never did much until I started working with SBCL.

-- 
David Douthitt
UNIX System Administrator
Linux+, LPIC-1, RHCE
HP-UX, Unixware, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD
Member: ACM, USENIX/SAGE


From DKICK1 at motorola.com  Mon Mar  7 20:18:06 2005
From: DKICK1 at motorola.com (Kick Damien-DKICK1)
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:18:06 -0600 
Subject: [chicago-lisp] Upcoming MAICS
Message-ID: <8E4E38BF6D087F4488E80ABAACA2F3F4B2A619@il27exm02.cig.mot.com>

So, I think I keep forgetting that MAICS is in Ohio...

I had been chatting with Brian a while back about the possibility of
the second Chicago Lisp meeting.  I keep coming back to the thought
that I personally would be interested in hearing more about the kind
of stuff that Brian and Eric Berkowitz <http://cs.roosevelt.edu/eric/>
having been doing, especially since Roosevelt is in our backyard.
Would anyone else be interested in this, too?

--
Damien Kick