[Gardeners] FAQ

[Peter Seibel]

On Dec 13, 2005, at 7:49 PM, Benjamin Tovar wrote:

>
>> I'd suggest you focus your efforts on the ALU wiki
>> (http:// wiki.lisp.org/) as the Cliki has a somewhat
>> narrower mission of discussion of Free and Open Source
>> lisps. Dunno about anyone else but I think if we're
>> interested in promoting the use of Lisp we should be
>> fairly inclusive. (Which is not to say I think the Cliki,
>> with it's focus is a bad idea--just that it's a different
>> thing.)
>
> I noticed today the following link:
>
> http://wiki.alu.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions
>
> Is this the FAQ we should focus our efforts around?

So, for whatever it's worth, here's what I was thinking vis a vis a  
FAQ. I'm personally willing to do some work to produce a good Common  
Lisp FAQ, mostly because I think it looks really dumb that when you  
Google for "lisp faq" the first link is to the old c.l.l. FAQ which,  
while good in many ways, hasn't been updated in almost 10 years.  
However I also have a strong (and perhaps anachronistic) belief in  
the value of editorial control. That is, I think the best FAQs are  
those that are filtered through a single editorial sensibility-- 
either a single person or a small number of like-minded individuals.  
And, as you might imagine, I've spent a fair bit of time thinking  
about how to explain Lisp, particularly to non-Lispers, and have some  
opinions about the right and wrong way to do it. Assuming we actually  
succeed in producing an updated comprehensive Common Lisp FAQ, it  
will likely be one of the early entry points for new Lispers so it's  
especially important that it strike the right tone; something that  
Lispers have historically not been so great at. So I'm less  
interested in working on a FAQ that's going to be on a Wiki,  
particularly given the oft times contentious nature of the larger  
Lisp community. Instead I'd much rather take my best crack at writing/ 
editing a FAQ and then putting it up on the CL Gardeners web site and  
seeing if we can make it the top result for "lisp faq" on Google and  
not worrying about whether everyone in "the Lisp community" likes it.  
(I learned early not to worry too much about getting the support of  
100% of Lispers when, while working on Practical Common Lisp, I got  
an email from a prominent Lisper asking me what business I had  
writing a book about Lisp.)

If it doesn't seem too radically immodest I propose this: I'll set up  
a mailing list for working on a FAQ and folks can send questions and  
proposed answers to the list and discuss them and I'll act as an  
editor, organizing them into a single FAQ document and tweaking  
things for tone and technical correctness. There are two key points  
to this proposal: a) that there be an overall editor who has the  
final say over the contents of the document and b) that I am that  
editor. I care much more about point (a) than point (b) though I'd  
like to think I'm pretty well qualified for the task. Shall we give  
it a try? Anyone else want the job? Worst case, if it doesn't work  
out, is you depose me and appoint a new editor or forget this whole  
editor foolishness and write a collectively edited FAQ on the Wiki.

-Peter

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