freenode/#lisp - IRC Chatlog
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7:55:34
beach
If people here are bored, and are looking for things to do, I think I can come up with some tasks for them. :)
7:57:21
Duuqnd
Well, I'm trying to get text rendering to work in my game engine, so I've got plenty to do.
7:58:36
ck_
idle chat is the well from which we refill our motivation, beach. Don't take it away please
7:58:39
no-defun-allowed
I'm not bored, just taking a break from deciding how to hide disk serialisation stuff with macros.
8:07:20
ArthurStrong
Has anyone seen good examples of MuD written in lisp or interactive fiction (like adventure)?
8:13:47
ck_
beach: it sounded like a half joke (you do curate a list of sicl-related tasks), so I made one in return :)
8:14:13
beach
no-defun-allowed: You mean in addition to the ones on my list of suggested projects? metamodular.com/Common-Lisp/suggested-projects.html ?
8:23:54
Duuqnd
beach: That list has some interesting stuff on it. I might try doing one of those projects some day.
8:25:15
phoe
I got some rather good (and old) criticism on my LOOP FINALLY stuff, time to read it all now that I have the time
8:27:59
Duuqnd
beach: Btw, I read that Swedish spelling reformation page, and I can't decide whether I love it or hate it.
8:29:35
Duuqnd
beach: I mean, it makes sense, it would probably be a good idea, but I wonder if it'd be possible to convince enough people to use it.
8:30:36
beach
Duuqnd: No it won't, but minor issues like that won't stop me from making suggestions that I think are right.
8:34:33
Duuqnd
I do think that it'd be a good idea to try though, since spelling is probably the most confusing part of Swedish.
8:41:13
Duuqnd
I find it kind of shocking how few PDF readers there are that can properly fill out forms.
8:41:33
jackdaniel
ACTION quietly hints, that if you don't want to work alone on this or that project, McCLIM is looking for contributors
8:41:36
Cymew
Interestingly enough "Editor for Common Lisp code" sounds so obvious, and still it shows up often in wishlists and suchlike.
8:42:36
Cymew
Yeah, I mean you need an editor to write code, so it should be the first thing to do, right?
8:43:06
Duuqnd
Speaking of editors, I feel like "Climacs" isn't exactly a good name for a serious project.
8:43:10
aeth
Cymew: The problem is that GNU Emacs is good enough... I mean, it's awful, but it's good enough.
8:44:14
beach
Cymew: It is easy to do something simple and not very useful, but difficult to do something truly great.
8:46:33
beach
Cymew: The plan for Second Climacs is to do syntactic and semantic analysis at typing speed.
8:47:43
Duuqnd
beach: I think "Climacs" might not be the best name... I mean, the name isn't bad, but it'll be hard to get people to take it seriously.
8:48:44
mfiano2
I agree. For something so innovative, I wouldn't piggy-back off of another editor's name.
8:49:38
Cymew
I am reminded of the conversations in the dlang community. So many people seem to crave so odd things in an editor. I have been using emacs for so long I can't see why it is not enough. I realize I am blind, but am in something of a different paradigm.
8:51:34
beach
Duuqnd: Right, we don't really have a good editor for Common Lisp code. Nor a debugger, nor ...
8:51:45
mfiano2
There are plugins to do syntactic and semantic analysis server-side with deep learning in real time, but this is something different and exciting. Been keeping an eye on it for years.
8:52:20
no-defun-allowed
Sadly "good enough is the enemy of what is actually needed" is not as frequently uttered as "perfect is the enemy of good".
8:54:05
beach
Cymew: Think syntax highlighting based on semantics rather than regular-expression parsing.
8:54:59
beach
The dynamic nature of Common Lisp makes the task much harder than for static languages.
8:59:21
Cymew
Was there any functionality in the old editors like Zwei that would ne interesting to resurrect? I have only glanced at the code briefly?
9:00:23
beach
That sounds likely. On the other hand, computers are way more powerful now than was the case of the Lisp machine.
9:02:04
Duuqnd
Sometimes I wonder how the tech industry would look if Lisp Machines became the norm.
9:02:55
shka__
For instance, it would be possible to have structural search to find expressions in the code.
9:12:27
scymtym
beach: thanks. it was inspired by an emacs lisp rewriting system presented at a recent ELS
9:18:49
shka__
for extra spicy example, one can imagine function that will return function bodies that are similar to other function using SVR metric
9:19:29
shka__
it would be a computationally intensive task, but with current hardware it is possible
9:22:23
lieven
Kent Pitman's "what was lost" post is 20 years old and these functionalities haven't been regained yet
9:25:52
lieven
I was merely reacting to the view that it is hardware performance that is/was keeping us
9:31:30
beach
Part of the problem, of course, is that many people are convinced that our current tools are absolutely fantastic.
9:33:01
Cymew
I might add my former comments are from the perspective of a grumpy old man, knowing his limitations. ;)
9:34:06
lieven
and part of the problem is that the goalposts are continuously shifting. Pike hit it with his also 20 year old remark that systems software is irrelevant. In order to have a functional desktop experience you need so many huge standards implemented that it's not feasible to do them from scratch and using existing implementations ties you to the current state of the art
9:35:26
lieven
for example the remark here earlier that so few pdf viewers do a good job with forms. to do forms properly you need to have a full ecmascript implementation in your viewer.
9:37:56
Duuqnd
Putting garbage languages into document formats! Truly, we live in the best timeline.
9:38:44
lieven
since acrobat stopped developing acroread for linux/unix, there is no pdf viewer that supports the 1.7 version of the PDF spec for these platforms
9:40:55
beach
One year, my (admittedly small) family actually had to go buy a Windows computer to do her US taxes because of that. Now, they have a website for it.
9:41:49
lieven
yeah a friend of mine had to go look for a windows computer to use for a visum application in a pdf+forms format
9:41:57
jackdaniel
"PDF 1.7 (...) ISO 32000-1, includes some proprietary technologies defined only by adobe"
9:43:10
lieven
jackdaniel: it may not count as an open standard but it is needed for a common desktop experience. likewise video codecs, drm incluced, etc
9:43:15
jackdaniel
"PDF 2.0 (newest standard) does not inlcude any proprietary technologies as normative references", so we have at least that
9:44:23
lieven
yeah and the bureaucracy that just send you one of those things will be hugely cooperative if you complain
9:45:09
lieven
last year there was a big ruckus in my country because tax professionals had to have a microsoft account to get access to the new tax legislation on an official government site
9:45:21
Duuqnd
Another example of this sort of thing is governments providing land border maps in a proprietary AutoCAD format.
9:45:58
aeth
we should specify the border between #lisp and #lispcafe in a proprietary AutoCAD format.
11:21:29
scymtym
shka__: no, i just wanted to try and make something like the emacs lisp thing using our libraries (eclector, mcclim, etc.)
11:24:00
shka__
do you intend to work on this? can I help? I would want to learn clim but it is much easier when you are working with someone that knows stuff
11:28:18
scymtym
shka__: i mainly work on the underlying libraries. in this case eclector, the pattern matcher and the s-expression syntax library. regarding clim, i enjoy using it and recommend it, but it is not at the core of the prototype in the screenshot
14:52:56
jackdaniel
a new name for a macro style often found in the wild: dimwit(?) -- do I mean what I tell(?)
14:56:51
phoe
minion: memo for pfdietz: the comments at https://gist.github.com/phoe/335fecfdc195bddd47ab0928b0e62e52 are good and outline errors in my reasoning. We're back to the drawing board, except now I wonder if commenting out the ANSI-TESTs that test the LOOP FINALLY variable values wouldn't be the best option if their value is to be treated as undefined.