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- Common Lisp the Language, 2nd Edition
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- Preface SECOND EDITION
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-
- Acknowledgments
-
- SECOND EDITION
-
- First and foremost, I must thank the many people in the Lisp community who have
- worked so hard to specify, implement, and use Common Lisp. Some of these have
- volunteered many hours of effort as members of ANSI committee X3J13. Others
- have made presentations or proposals to X3J13, and yet others have sent
- suggestions and corrections to the first edition directly to me. This book
- builds on their efforts as well as mine.
-
- An early draft of this book was made available to all members of X3J13 for
- their criticism. I have also worked with the many public documents that have
- been written during the course of the committee's work (which is not over yet).
- It is my hope that this book is an accurate reflection of the committee's
- actions as of October 1989. Nevertheless, any errors or inconsistencies are my
- responsibility. The fact that I have made a draft available to certain persons,
- received feedback from them, or thanked them in these acknowledgments does not
- necessarily imply that any one of them or any of the institutions with which
- they are affiliated endorse this book or anything of its contents.
-
- Digital Press and I gave permission to X3J13 to use any or all parts of the
- first edition in the production of an ANSI Common Lisp standard. Conversely, in
- writing this book I have worked with publicly available documents produced by
- X3J13 in the course of its work, and in some cases as a courtesy have obtained
- the consent of the authors of those documents to quote them extensively. This
- common ancestry will result in similarities between this book and the emerging
- ANSI Common Lisp standard (that is the purpose, after all). Nevertheless, this
- second edition has no official connection whatsoever with X3J13 or ANSI, nor is
- it endorsed by either of those institutions.
-
- The following persons have been members of X3J13 or involved in its activities
- at one time or another: Jim Allard, Dave Andre, Jim Antonisse, William Arbaugh,
- John Aspinall, Bob Balzer, Gerald Barber, Richard Barber, Kim Barrett, David
- Bartley, Roger Bate, Alan Bawden, Michael Beckerle, Paul Beiser, Eric Benson,
- Daniel Bobrow, Mary Boelk, Skona Brittain, Gary Brown, Tom Bucken, Robert
- Buckley, Gary Byers, Dan Carnese, Bob Cassels, JÈrÙme Chailloux, Kathy Chapman,
- Thomas Christaller, Will Clinger, Peter Coffee, John Cugini, Pavel Curtis, Doug
- Cutting, Christopher Dabrowski, Jeff Dalton, Linda DeMichiel, Fred Discenzo,
- Jerry Duggan, Patrick Dussud, Susan Ennis, Scott Fahlman, Jogn Fitch, John
- Foderaro, Richard Gabriel, Steven Gadol, Nick Gall, Oscar Garcia, Robert
- Giansiracusa, Brad Goldstein, David Gray, Richard Greenblatt, George Hadden,
- Steve Haflich, Dave Henderson, Carl Hewitt, Carl Hoffman, Cheng Hu, Masayuki
- Ida, Takayasu Ito, Sonya Keene, James Kempf, Gregory Jennings, Robert Kerns,
- Gregor Kiczales, Kerry Kimbrough, Dieter Kolb, Timothy Koschmann, Ed Krall,
- Fritz Kunze, Aaron Larson, Joachim Laubsch, Kevin Layer, Michael Levin, Ray
- Lim, Thom Linden, David Loeffler, Sandra Loosemore, Barry Margolin, Larry
- Masinter, David Matthews, Robert Mathis, John McCarthy, Chris McConnell, Rob
- McLachlan, Jay Mendelsohn, Martin Mikelsons, Tracey Miles, Richard Mlyarnik,
- David Moon, Jarl Nilsson, Leo Noordhulsen, Ronald Ohlander, Julian Padget, Jeff
- Peck, Jan Pedersen, Bob Pellegrino, Crispin Perdue, Dan Pierson, Kent Pitman,
- Dexter Pratt, Christian Quiennec, B. Raghavan, Douglas Rand, Jonathan Rees,
- Chris Richardson, Jeff Rininger, Walter van Roggen, Jeffrey Rosenking, Don
- Sakahara, William Scherlis, David Slater, James Smith, Alan Snyder, Angela
- Sodan, Richard Soley, S. Sridhar, Bill St. Clair, Philip Stanhope, Guy Steele,
- Herbert Stoyan, Hiroshi Torii, Dave Touretzky, Paul Tucker, Rick Tucker, Thomas
- Turba, David Unietis, Mary Van Deusen, Ellen Waldrum, Richard Waters, Allen
- Wechsler, Mark Wegman, Jon L White, Skef Wholey, Alexis Wieland, Martin Yonke,
- Bill York, Taiichi Yuasa, Gail Zacharias, and Jan Zubkoff.
-
- I must express particular gratitude and appreciation to a number of people for
- their exceptional efforts:
-
- Larry Masinter, chairman of the X3J13 Cleanup Subcommittee, developed the
- standard format for documenting all proposals to be voted upon. The result has
- been an outstanding tehcnical and historical record of all the actions taken by
- X3J13 to rectify and improve Common Lisp.
-
- Sandra Loosemore, chairwoman of the X3J13 Compiler Subcommittee, produced many
- proposals for clarifying the semantics of the compilation process. She has been
- a diligent stickler for detail and has helped to clarify many parts of Common
- Lisp left vague in the first edition.
-
- Jon L White, chairman of the X3J13 Iteration Subcommittee, supervised the
- consideration of several controversial proposals, one of which (loop) was
- eventually adopted by X3J13.
-
- Thom Linden, chairman of the X3J13 Character Subcommittee, led a team in
- grappling with the difficult problem of accommodating various character sets in
- Common Lisp. One result is that Common Lisp will be more attractive for
- international use.
-
- Kent Pitman, chairman of the X3J13 Error Handling Subcommittee, plugged the
- biggest outstanding hole in Common Lisp as described by the first edition.
-
- Kathy Chapman, chairwoman of the X3J13 Drafting Subcommittee, and principal
- author of the draft standard, has not only written a great deal of text but
- also insisted on coherent and consistent terminology and pushed the rest of the
- committee forward when necessary.
-
- Robert Mathis, chairman of X3J13, has kept administrative matters flowing
- smoothly during technical controversies.
-
- Mary Van Deusen, secretary of X3J13, kept excellent minutes that were a
- tremendous aid to me in tracing the history of a number of complex discussions.
-
- Jan Zubkoff, X3J13 meeting and mailing organizer, knows what's going on, as
- always. She is a master of organization and of physical arrangements. Moreover,
- she once again pulled me out of the fire at the last minute.
-
- Dick Gabriel, international representative for X3J13, has kept information
- flowing smoothly between Europe, Japan, and the United States. He provided a
- great deal of the energy and drive for the completion of the Common Lisp Object
- System specification. He has also provided me with a great deal of valuable
- advice and has been on call for last-minute consultation at all hours during
- the final stages of preparation for this book.
-
- David Moon has consistently been a source of reason, expert knowledge, and
- careful scrutiny. He has read the first edition and the X3J13 proposals perhaps
- more carefully than anyone else.
-
- David Moon, Jon L White, Gregor Kiczales, Robert Mathis, Mary Boelk provided
- extensive feedback on an early draft of this book. I thank them as well as the
- many others who commented in one way or another on the draft.
-
- I wish to thank the authors of large proposals to X3J13 that have made material
- available for more or less wholesale inclusion in this book as distinct
- chapters. This material was produced primarily for the use of X3J13 in its
- work. It has been included here on a non-exclusive basis with the consent of
- the authors.
-
- The author of the chapter on loop (Jon L White) notes that the chapter is based
- on documentation written at Lucid, Inc., by Molly M. Miller, Sonia Orin Lyris,
- and Kris Dinkel. Glenn Burke, Scott Fahlman, Colin Meldrum, David Moon, Cris
- Perdue, and Dick Waters contributed to the design of the loop macro.
-
- The authors of the Common Lisp Object System specification (Daniel G. Bobrow,
- Linda G. DeMichiel, Richard P. Gabriel, Sonya E. Keene, Gregor Kiczales, and
- David A. Moon) wish to thank Patrick Dussud, Kenneth Kahn, Jim Kempf, Larry
- Masinter, Mark Stefik, Daniel L. Weinreb, and Jon L White for their
- contributions.
-
- The author of the chapter on Conditions (Kent M. Pitman) notes that there is a
- paper [38] containing background information about the design of the condition
- system, which is based on the condition system of the Symbolics Lisp Machines
- [49]. The members of the X3J13 Error Handling Subcommittee were Andy Daniels
- and Kent Pitman. Richard Mlynarik and David A. Moon made major design
- contributions. Useful comments, questions, suggestions, and criticisms were
- provided by Paul Anagnostopoulos, Alan Bawden, William Chiles, Pavel Curtis,
- Mary Fontana, Dick Gabriel, Dick King, Susan Lander, David D. Loeffler, Ken
- Olum, David C. Plummer, Alan Snyder, Eric Weaver, and Daniel L. Weinreb. The
- Condition System was designed specifically to accommodate the needs of Common
- Lisp. The design is, however, most directly based on the ``New Error System''
- (NES) developed at Symbolics by David L. Andre, Bernard S. Greenberg, Mike
- McMahon, David A. Moon, and Daniel L. Weinreb. The NES was in turn based on
- experiences with the original Lisp Machine error system (developed at MIT),
- which was found to be inadequate for the needs of the modern Lisp Machine
- environments. Many aspects of the NES were inspired by the (PL/I) condition
- system used by the Honeywell Multics operating system. Henry Lieberman provided
- conceptual guidance and encouragement in the design of the NES. A
- reimplementation of the NES for non-Symbolics Lisp Machine dialects (MIT, LMI,
- and TI) was done at MIT by Richard M. Stallman. During the process of that
- reimplementation, some conceptual changes were made which have significantly
- influenced the Common Lisp Condition System.
-
- As for the smaller but no less important proposals, Larry Masinter deserves
- recognition as an author of over half of them. He has worked indefatigably to
- write up proposals and to polish drafts by other authors. Kent Pitman, David
- Moon, and Sandra Loosemore have also been notably prolific, as well as Jon L
- White, Dan Pierson, Walter van Roggen, Skona Brittain, Scott Fahlman, and
- myself. Other authors of proposals include David Andre, John Aspinall, Kim
- Barrett, Eric Benson, Daniel Bobrow, Bob Cassels, Kathy Chapman, WIlliam
- Clinger, Pavel Curtis, Doug Cutting, Jeff Dalton, Linda DiMichiel, Richard
- Gabriel, Steven Haflich, Sonya Keene, James Kempf, Gregor Kiczales, Dieter
- Kolb, Barry Margolin, Chris McConnell, Jeff Peck, Jan Pedersen, Crispin Perdue,
- Jonathan Rees, Don Sakahara, David Touretzky, Richard Waters, and Gail
- Zacharias.
-
- I am grateful to Donald E. Knuth and his colleagues for producing the TeX text
- formatting system [28], which was used to produce and typeset the manuscript.
- Knuth did an especially good job of publishing the program for TeX [29]; I had
- to consult the code about eight times while debugging particularly complicated
- macros. Thanks to the extensive indexing and cross-references, in each case it
- took me less than five minutes to find the relevant fragment of that 500-page
- program.
-
- I also owe a debt to Leslie Lamport, author of the LaTeX macro package [30] for
- TeX, within which I implemented the document style for this book.
-
- Blue Sky Research sells and supports Textures, an implementation of TeX for
- Apple Macintosh computers; Gayla Groom and Barry Smith of Blue Sky Research
- provided excellent technical support when I needed it. Other software tools
- that were invaluable in preparing this book were QuicKeys (sold by CE Software,
- Inc.), which provides keyboard macros; Gofer (sold by Microlytics, Inc.), which
- performs rapid text searches in multiple files; Symantec Utilities for
- Macintosh (sold by Symantec Corporation), which saved me from more than one
- disk crash; and the PostScript language and compatible fonts (sold by Adobe
- Systems Incorporated).
-
- Some of this software (such as LaTeX) I obtained for free and some I bought,
- but all have proved to be useful tools of excellent quality. I am grateful to
- these developers for creating them.
-
- Electronic mail has been indispensible to the writing of this book, as well to
- as the work of X3J13. (It is a humbling experience to publish a book and then
- for the next five years to receive at least one electronic mail message a week,
- if not twenty, pointing out some mistake or defect.) Kudos to those develop and
- maintain the Internet, which arose from the Arpanet and other networks.
-
- Chase Duffy, George Horesta, and Will Buddenhagen of Digital Press have given
- me much encouragement and support. David Ford designed the book and provided
- specifications that I could code into TeX. Alice Cheyer and Kate Schmit edited
- the copy for style and puzzled over the more obscure jokes with great patience.
- Marilyn Rowland created the index; Tim Evans and I did some polishing. Laura
- Fillmore and her colleagues at Editorial, Inc., have tirelessly and
- meticulously checked one draft after another and has kept the paperwork flowing
- smoothly during the last hectic weeks of proofreading, page makeup, and
- typesetting.
-
- Thinking Machines Corporation has supported all my work with X3J13. I thank all
- my colleagues there for their encouragement and help.
-
- Others who provided indispensible encouragement and support include Guy and
- Nalora Steele; David Steele; Cordon and Ruth Kerns; David, Patricia, Tavis,
- Jacob, Nicholas, and Daniel Auwerda; Donald and Denise Kerns; and David, Joyce,
- and Christine Kerns.
-
- Most of the writing of this book took place between 10 P.M. and 3 A.M. (I'm not
- as young as I used to be). I am grateful to Barbara, Julia, Peter, and Matthew
- for putting up with it, and for their love.
-
- Guy L. Steele Jr.
- Lexington, Massachusetts
- All Saints' Day, 1989
-
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- [next] [up] [previous] [contents] [index]
- Next: Acknowledgments FIRST EDITION Up: Common Lisp the Language Previous:
- Preface SECOND EDITION
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- AI.Repository@cs.cmu.edu
-