[Gardeners] Introduction and suggestion

[Joshua Stone]

On Dec 15, 2005, at 3:52 AM, Tim Cross wrote:

> One of the most difficult problems I've encountered with lisp is in
> finding the appropriate function for doing some task. Many times I've
> looked for some functionality which I knew was likely to exist, but
> couldn't find the appropriate function. Some of this was due to not
> being familiar with lisp nameing conventions/style and part of it is
> due to the large number of functions available in CL. While the
> hyperspec is great once you know what your looking for, its not so
> good when you have an idea or know the general area, but not the
> name. I've often ended up re-inventing the wheel only to stumble
> across a built in function that does the same job. While this can be a
> good way to learn, it really slows down your development time and that
> can be somewhat discouraging at times.

So are you suggesting something like an "idiomatic dictionary" for 
Common Lisp?  I.e., we all probably implemented a "sum" function before 
we 'discovered' #'reduce, right (on a side-note, everyone always 
complains about the semantic inaccessibility of CL function names, but 
compare "reduce" to Ruby's "inject" -- crazy, huh?)?  I like this idea, 
if only because it seems to me that PCL is just about the only truly 
practical approach to "how to do stuff" in Lisp (I'm sure I'm wrong, so 
feel free to correct me -- I won't be surprised).

If I recall correctly, Paul Graham does discuss some common idioms in 
Common Lisp in "On Lisp", though it's really not the point of the book. 
  I have been quite embarrassed at times to show my code to other people 
just to have them say, "Oh, you don't need that function..."

-Josh Stone-