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			 Second LISP Newsletter

The First letter was simply an  appeal for membership; this one begins  to
attack the  substance  of  the  matter. First,  thank  you  all  for  your
response!

I initiated this letter, my BYTE editorial in March, and my book  "Anatomy
of LISP", because I feel very strongly that LISP is an important facet  of
modern computing; as a language to  be studied formally, as an example  of
language design and  implementation techniques,  and as a  vehicle for  AI
applications, LISP excells.   It is  a combination  of (medically  proven)
ingredients which should be understood and assimilated by those who expect
to keep pace with the  accelerating sophistication of personal  computing.
The major change is the  approach of the sixteen-bit micros  --appropriate
vehicles for non-toy LISP implementations.

Therefore this Newsletter is the beginning of a most interesting phase  of
computing: the concerted effort  to bring LISP to  a wide and  (hopefully)
eager audience.  For those of you who  might not know it yet (I had  hoped
to get this mailed before) the August issue of BYTE is dedicated to  LISP.
In fact, the cover is also a LISP artifact. The original conception was to
be a view from a spacecraft descending onto a planet; on the surface was a
monolith with some LISP-ish expressions; in the sky above, were to be  two
glowing parentheses.  Alas, the final cover was not as dramatic, but it is
rather striking (even with the bad LISP code!).

A few words about this newsletter: I will act as a "clearinghouse" for all
the LISP information that comes to  my attention. I am trying to  organize
the tons of stuff I already have. I will track down and report on all  the
currently available LISPs,  and plan to  review them as  best I can.  Your
help is solicited! I  have at least attempted  to use the following  micro
implementations (in alphabetical order):  Alpha-Micro's LISP 1.6,  Apple's
version in BASIC, and VLISP from the University of Paris.

I know of at least  two versions for the 6800,  a version for the  LSI-11,
several more for the 8080/Z80, and even one written in HPL for the HP9825.

The format of this letter is totally flexible. I'd like to see it  contain
your work  --your  experiences with  LISP,  and suggestions  for  projects
(including perhaps experiments with long-distance communal progrramming?).

Speaking of publishing programs, one  thing which should be cultivated  in
this LISP-learning  effort  is  an  understanding  of  programming  style.
Programming is like poetry --everyone can do it, but it takes practice  to
do it well. Of course, "well" does  not mean "fast" or "without bugs";  it
meaans "with style". An interactive  LISP system is an exceptionally  good
tool with which to develop a "style". Notice I did not restrict myself  to
the  language,  but  include  the  whole  "programming  environment";  the
"environment" is  the major  lacking  in current  micro (and  maxi!)  LISP
implementations.  In a future letter I will try to explain why LISP has to
potential to support a superior environment --superior to that enjoyed  by
UCSD Pascal or planned for ADA.

So, please send question  about LISP, suggestions  for topics, and  spread
the word.

By the way, I would like to know if anyone has objections to  distributing
the membership list as part of the newsletter?

To summarize: I  will prepare  for your questions,  organize some  initial
position papers on programming  style and LISP,  select some topics  which
would be good  projects --either applications  or implementations, try  to
collect experiences  on  the various  LISPs  which currently  exists,  and
generally get organized!



ps. i will try to answer all letters you sent.