[CLD] PCL submission to CL Directory

[Peter Seibel]

[might as well use this mailing list]

On Jan 5, 2006, at 12:35 PM, Marc Battyani wrote:

> Paolo wrote:
>> I'm forwarding the attached message with Peter's permission.  And, by
>> the way, he was probably right about the URLs being the same: by the
>> time I copied that links, you had already merged the info in the PCL
>> entry :)
>
> OK
>
> Peter wrote:
>>>   http://www.cl-user.net/asp/sdataWwAvDQ3WRGpX8yBX8yBXnMq=/b
>>>
>>> See also:
>>>
>>>   http://www.cl-user.net/asp/sdataWwAvDQ30RGpX8yBX8yBXnMq=/b
>>
>> Uh, aren't those the same URL? Oh, no I see the difference now. Let
>> me take this opportunity to say that those URLs are a major
>> impediment to me actually using this web site--it may be some
>> misguided sense of aesthetics, but every time I see one of those URLs
>> it gives me the heebie-jeebies. I don't know if I can re-use them or
>> email them to friends. Basically it just makes me uneasy about the
>> whole site. And thus unlikely to use it. I doubt I'm the only one.
>
> Well in fact the only people I have seen bothered by these URL are  
> web developpers ;-)
> The most upset being lemonodor (though he is more a python guy  
> nowdays IIRC)
> The URL that are on pages as "permanent URL" don't contain anything  
> but the page ref and
> are safe to email and use on web sites.

Yeah, but even the permanent URLs look like line-noise. And I when  
I'm just browsing a site, I want to be able to cut-n-paste the URL  
out of my browser and email it to someone, not have to go searching  
the page for a safe-to-email permanent URL.

> BTW tell me why this is less acceptable than a java encoded URL  
> like this:
> cgi-bin/bv/home/Home.jsp? 
> BV_SessionID=@@@@0941546823.1136493133@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccccaddgil
> mkggfcefeceefdffhdgli. 
> 0&cacheID=f1netscape&3313945937=3313945937&BV_SessionID=@@@@09415468
> 23.1136493133@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccccaddgilmkggfcefeceefdffhdgli.0

It's not. It's just as unacceptable. I can live with urls like that  
when they're on a commerce web site because I *expect* that my  
interactions with the site are unique to me. But when I'm looking at  
a informational website, I expect the information to be organized by  
a human being and for the URLs to give me some sense of that  
organization.

> If people prefer that I can do it too ;-)
>
>>> Would you like me to merge the information?  Or do you prefer me to
>>> remove the above one and add yours?
>>
>> No, the entry that is there is fine. I couldn't see any easy way to
>> tell if my link was already in the directory so I figured I'd just
>> submit it. Which is probably a commentary on how easy it is to find
>> something at the moment.
>
> You should have looked at information => learning
> or Resources => By Support => Books
> or whatever other tags there are attached to PCL.

Well, I clicked on something that in retrospect took me to  a list of  
books. But I didn't even realize that the first item in that list  
"Basic Lisp Techniques" was the name of a book rather than a  
category. And I didn't actually read the big block of text containing  
the other titles in order to find Practical Common Lisp which was, I  
see now, burried there somewhere. Some of this has to do with  
organization and some of it has to do with text styles and so forth.

> You can see the whole tag tree on the "Tags map" page.

Yeah, I found that. It didn't do much for me.

> I will add an help page to explain how to use it.

That's fine but I think it needs to be reasonably obvious how to use  
it without having to read a manual--most people aren't going to care  
that much.

-Peter

P.S. I hope you accept these grumblings in the sprit which they are  
intended--trying to find ways to make the CLD a more useful resource  
for Lispers. I'm not trying to beat you up for the fun of it.


-- 
Peter Seibel           * peter at gigamonkeys.com
Gigamonkeys Consulting * http://www.gigamonkeys.com/
Practical Common Lisp  * http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/