[toronto-lisp] October meeting minutes

[Vish Singh]

attendees:
  Paul Tarvydas
  Vish Singh
  Aleksandar Matijaca
  Leo Zovic
  Doug Hoyte

discussion topics:
- Doug talked about the state machine compiler he's using (I think it
was http://www.complang.org/ragel/)
  - compiles to C code
  - he uses it to build state machines for parsing HTTP streams
- Let Over Lambda did something similar, with finding a substring
within a chunked stream
  - easy to make mistakes in such code, so better to use a DSL
- does Clojure make full use of all CPU cores? I think so, but there
was some debate here.
- some discussion on JIT compilation
- Alex described how shared-memory concurrency can be implemented
using in-memory databases
- Antiweb uses Berkeley DB in a similar way
- Y2K problem, fixing it using automated tools
- more programming war stories (fascinating for me, definitely helps
in appreciating modern technology)
- discussion of articles: "Crash-Only Software" and "A Benchmark for
Multi-Core Machines"
- using Clojure within Java projects
- obstacles to the use of Lisp professionally in Toronto?
  - jaded attitudes towards the language due to many people's
experiences with early Lisps (interpreted, slow)
  - fixation on the idea that it's an AI language, even though
nowadays you can do just about anything with it
  - (my own attitude: Lisp needs better branding.. Clojure is helping
us in that respect)
- Land of Lisp book, game programming