In the previous episode, we’ve obtained a list of all symbols with the function OBLIST, and looked at their internal slots with SYMBOL->CELLS. While this was useful to examine a single package like, say, COMMON-LISP-USER, it didn’t tell us what other packages were available. In this post, we’ll revisit OBLIST, rewriting it with the somewhat [...]
Archive of entries posted in the year 2012
ANSI Common Lisp Introspection
Here is a couple of hopefully portable ANSI Common Lisp functions that will help you explore available objects (symbols). In this post you’ll find: OBLIST, a function that returns a list of all objects ??, ?f, ?v, ?t, and ?s, functions that will fetch the whole description or documentation strings of a symbol SYMBOL->CELLS, a [...]
VGWort’s Shady Business Model?
Unless you’re an author in Germany, you may never have heard of the ominous VGWort royalties collection agency. And unless you had to interact with them, you may not be aware of their shady, or at least highly questionable, business model. As a published author, I’ve had a pretty bad experience with VGWort lately, since [...]
Bye, bye, GUUG
This is my last year as a member in the German Unix User Group (GUUG e.V.). I’m definitely leaving GUUG December 31st. 2012, and I don’t think that I’ll be back in the foreseeable future. I’m somewhat saddened by this move, but I see no alternatives for now.
John McCarthy, Dennis M. Ritchie, and Steve Jobs passed away
Three giants of the computer world have passed away in 2011: Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple Inc.), Dennis M. Ritchie (inventor of C) and John McCarthy (inventor of LISP, Artificial Intelligence, and time sharing). Even though all three of them equally revolutionized the IT world, only Steve Jobs’ death drew the attention of the “genteel [...]