Subject: Re: ISO on Common (was: ISO/IEC CD 13816 -- ISLisp) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1995/12/22 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <19951222T011429Z_-_@arcana.naggum.no> [Fernando D. Mato Mira] | What hurdles, if any, exist to implement ISO Lisp as a thin layer | of macrology on top of Common Lisp? I see this as implying that it would be desirable to have a Common Lisp package that implemented ISLisp. if I may stretch the idea, I think one should _define_ International Standard Lisp as a package that can be referenced in existing Lisp systems (probably several, not just the _standard_ ones). this is not a trivial exercise, but keeping with the spirit of the Norwegian suggestion (mine, actually, although it was not as new in the real world as it was to ISO <-- understatement) during discussions about the procedures of ISO recognition of Publicly Accessible Specifications (PAS), which was adopted with much less enthusiasm than I had hoped (essentially "yeah, great idea. what's the next item?"), that ISO standards should have a free reference implementation before they were fully adopted. C++ got jump-started by free-loading on C compilers, a devilishly clever move in retrospect, but probably one of necessity at the time. similarly, I don't think ISLisp has _any_ chance of becoming a winning standard Lisp unless it is piggy-backing on previous work and available compilers, just as I don't think C++ would have a snowball's chance in hell of winning if the current ISO draft was thrown in implementors' faces with an "implement _this_" attitude. probably forging a bad pun, I'd like to think of this as the incrementality of standards editors, with stress on "mentality". #<Erik 3028583669> -- suppose we actually were immortal... what is the opposite of living your life as if every day were your last?