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Dec. 26th, 2007 | 03:40 pm

I've removed Bill Clementson and Eric Normand from Planet Lisp. If you'd like to keep up with their blogs, be sure to subscribe directly.

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Comments {28}

(no subject)

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 26th, 2007 09:18 pm (UTC)
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Was there a compelling reason for this? Honestly, Bill Clementson's blog is half the reason I check planet.lisp

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Zach Beane

(no subject)

from: [info]xach
date: Dec. 26th, 2007 09:27 pm (UTC)
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I prefer syndicating blogs that are about using Common Lisp in some way. Bill's blog is great, but it's not all that often about Common Lisp any more.

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недосып разума

(no subject)

from: [info]cmm
date: Dec. 26th, 2007 10:06 pm (UTC)
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what's wrong with the second one?

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Zach Beane

(no subject)

from: [info]xach
date: Dec. 26th, 2007 11:49 pm (UTC)
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It's just awful.

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Awful?

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 27th, 2007 05:15 am (UTC)
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As someone just learning LISP, I found lispcast.com helpful.

I'm curious as to why you think it's awful.

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Re: Awful?

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 27th, 2007 08:45 am (UTC)
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As somebody who knows Lisp medium-well, I have to agree that lispcast.com is awful. (I actually hadn't noticed that all of the posts I skip were from the same place, thanks to the planet format, until I went back to look just now.)

It feels like somebody else who's just learning Lisp. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing to blog about, but the code examples are not good Lisp code. I don't think anybody is going to become a better programmer by reading that, sad to say.

For example, the reddit clone (what's the point?) has whole-line comments for each import with "we need the XYZ library", but doesn't document the actual code. The natural-order sorting post just went on *forever*; I remember thinking that I'd written that algorithm once or twice, and it never seemed as painful or complex as he made it.

If I didn't already know Lisp, it would probably turn me off of Lisp for years to see somebody take 20 screenfuls to write what he showed was 10 lines of Python to begin with. (You can do almost a direct translation of the Python code.)

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Re: Awful?

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 27th, 2007 04:32 pm (UTC)
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I find the site very helpful, myself. I'm not saying it should be syndicated on planet lisp (xach can do whatever he wants with it, it's his site), but I really like lispcast. Maybe I will feel differently if I ever graduate from the "beginner" stage, but I felt it was worth mentioning that for those to whom the site is directed, it's pretty good. There may be better ways to do things using more arcane constructs and patterns, but those are not very helpful if I don't understand them. The length of the sort order post, for example, was primarily because he documented every step of the process rather than just summarizing and posting the finally form of his code. For you, this is a complete waste of time, I'm sure, but for a complete newb, it's nice to see how others approach the design/author/refactor approach. The unit tests must get in the way if all you are interested in is his algorithm for sorting, but their existence is a plus for someone trying to follow an example.

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Re: Awful?

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 28th, 2007 08:05 am (UTC)
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"There may be better ways to do things using more arcane constructs and patterns, but those are not very helpful if I don't understand them."

Is it opposite day? The Python code was 10 lines (or 4, for the more concise version), and you could directly convert it to Lisp. It was very straightforward: split strings into lists of numbers-and-strings, then sort those lists. I'm not sure how using PCOND was supposed to help; I think *that* was a great example of an "arcane construct"!

It was long for no good reason, not "because he documented every step". His steps included such things as making a table of 9 cases he needed to handle. Why does he think he needs these 9 cases? (He doesn't say.) The 4 lines of Python didn't have 9 cases to handle!

I still think PAIP is the best general-purpose set of how-to-do-awesome-stuff-in-CL I've seen. PAIP makes hard stuff seem simple; Lispcast makes simple stuff seem hard. One of these is valuable to programmers, and one of these is not. (Was that smug enough for a Lisp programmer, Kenny?)

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Re: Awful?

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 28th, 2007 01:02 pm (UTC)
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By "There may be better ways to do things using more arcane constructs and patterns, but those are not very helpful if I don't understand them", I wasn't referring to the specific task being solved in that Lispcast post, I was responding to the criticism of the author's code as overly verbose. In general.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but the Lisp solution described in that post is more capable than the Python solution? I'm not saying the Python solution could not be made just as or more capable as well (perhaps even in fewer lines, since that seems to be the important criterion in this discussion), only that the Lispcast solution was designed to allow different sort algorithms to be plugged-in, whereas the Python solution hardcodes a specific sort algorithm. In other words, despite what Normand says in the beginning of the post, "I wanted to see how one would write it in Lisp" (or something along those lines), he really doesn't just port the code over to Lisp, he takes it a step further. Yes, the presence of unit tests contributes to this code length.

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation of PAIP, I will keep an eye out for it.

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Re: Awful?

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 28th, 2007 09:37 pm (UTC)
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PAIP: "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming". It's one of the books listed on Eric's blog.

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Re: Awful?

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 28th, 2007 10:48 pm (UTC)
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Sorry, I meant I would keep an eye out for it in a store or library or something. Thanks!

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Re: Awful?

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 31st, 2007 12:18 am (UTC)
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No, I believe they're equal in power. The last line of Python is "l.sort( key=alphanum_key )". The last line of Lisp is ":key #’split-alpha-num" (in a #'sort call). You can replace one as easily as the other.

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Zach Beane

Re: Awful?

from: [info]xach
date: Dec. 27th, 2007 12:35 pm (UTC)
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The code is no good and the style is pretty verbose.

I was going to do some code review (I like reading and commenting on code), but the huge swath of tests at the start of everything was so obnoxious I gave up.

If you find it helpful, feel free to read it directly. It's still there!

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Re: Awful?

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 27th, 2007 07:07 pm (UTC)
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As a Lisp newbie, I would appreciate a Lisp code review of code that's out in the world. It'd make for an interesting blog post.

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Please rename to Planet Common Lisp.

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 26th, 2007 11:20 pm (UTC)
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Most of the articles on Clementson's front page are lisp or closely related (TECO => Emacs, OLPC => sometimes referred to as the modern lisp machine). If you are limited to Common Lisp, please let planet lisp be available for all lisps.

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Zach Beane

Re: Please rename to Planet Common Lisp.

from: [info]xach
date: Dec. 27th, 2007 12:11 am (UTC)
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I don't think the name is all that important. If you make a great aggregate blog of all sorts of Lisp-related blogs, nobody will really care if it's called Planet Lisp or Lisp Universe or whatever. I encourage you to give it a shot if you don't like the choices I make for which blogs are on Planet Lisp.

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(no subject)

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 28th, 2007 11:45 pm (UTC)
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I think most ppl don't want to maintain multiple blogs (one for work, one for school, one for lisp hacking, one for painting, whatever).

planet lisp provides not much values if it cannot filter out common lisp related contents (either done manually or show off your CL skill and write a filter for CL contents). planet lisp without CL related post from billc just doesn't seem right to me.

I'll just use the yahoo pipe for now (although it contains much more emacs contents than I like).

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Zach Beane

(no subject)

from: [info]xach
date: Dec. 29th, 2007 12:40 pm (UTC)
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Many people keep one blog but categorize posts.

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Oh noes!

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 26th, 2007 10:18 pm (UTC)
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Get them to use tags or something instead.

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Zach Beane

Re: Oh noes!

from: [info]xach
date: Dec. 26th, 2007 11:49 pm (UTC)
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Bill and I discussed that some time ago, he doesn't want to use them, and I don't want to do some heuristic to try to find Common Lisp content.

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Why?

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 26th, 2007 10:45 pm (UTC)
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Could you please be so kind and tell me/us why you did that?

Greetings

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No problem

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 26th, 2007 11:49 pm (UTC)
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Don't worry about trying to change xach's mind. Just start a planet.lisp.org* which has planet.lisp.org plus Bill's blog. It's the Lisp way!

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Zach Beane

Re: No problem

from: [info]xach
date: Dec. 26th, 2007 11:52 pm (UTC)
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Funny you should mention that...

People suggest their blogs to me from time to time, and I generally read them for a while and either add them or don't add them. I've been thinking about having a Raw Planet Lisp that has, basically, all the blogs anyone ever suggested to me. Really super Lisp blogs could get "promoted" to the main Planet.

Haven't done anything about it though.

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Vote against

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 27th, 2007 07:59 am (UTC)
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Hi,

just to raise my voice in this case: I'd vote for keeping both of them here. I also second that BC's posts, though not always lisp-related and sometimes rather longish, are among my reasons to check planet lisp (almost) every day.

Regards,
Stefan Kamphausen

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Zach Beane

Re: Vote against

from: [info]xach
date: Dec. 27th, 2007 12:17 pm (UTC)
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Sorry, no. I think Bill Clementson's blog is great, and I will continue to read it, but it no longer covers any of the ground I think appropriate for Planet Lisp with much frequency.

The nice thing about the Internet is that just because he's not on Planet Lisp doesn't mean you can't read it any more...

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(no subject)

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 27th, 2007 09:32 am (UTC)
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Why is that so ? Did they request it ?

Jean-Christophe Helary

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Thanks for posting it.

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 27th, 2007 04:18 pm (UTC)
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I'm just glad you announced it rather than dropping them silently, so I could subscribe to them directly (I enjoy reading both of them).

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Re: Thanks for posting it.

from: anonymous
date: Dec. 28th, 2007 10:04 am (UTC)
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Some are dropped silently.

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