Common Lisp the Language, 2nd Edition

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# Acknowledgments

FIRST EDITION (1984)

Common Lisp was designed by a diverse group of people affiliated with many institutions.

Contributors to the design and implementation of Common Lisp and to the polishing of this book are hereby gratefully acknowledged:

    Paul Anagnostopoulos    Digital Equipment Corporation
    Dan Aronson             Carnegie-Mellon University
    Alan Bawden             Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Eric Benson             University of Utah, Stanford University, and Symbolics
                            Incorporated
    Jon Bentley             Carnegie-Mellon University and Bell Laboratories
    Jerry Boetje            Digital Equipment Corporation
    Gary Brooks             Texas Instruments
    Rodney A. Brooks        Stanford University
    Gary L. Brown           Digital Equipment Corporation
    Richard L. Bryan        Symbolics, Incorporated
    Glenn S. Burke          Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Howard I. Cannon        Symbolics, Incorporated
    George J. Carrette      Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Robert Cassels          Symbolics, Incorporated
    Monica Cellio           Carnegie-Mellon University
    David Dill              Carnegie-Mellon University
    Scott E. Fahlman        Carnegie-Mellon University
    Richard J. Fateman      University of California, Berkeley
    Neal Feinberg           Carnegie-Mellon University
    Ron Fischer             Rutgers University
    John Foderaro           University of California, Berkeley
    Steve Ford              Texas Instruments
    Richard P. Gabriel      Stanford University and Lawrence Livermore National
                            Laboratory
    Joseph Ginder           Carnegie-Mellon University and Perq Systems Corp.
    Bernard S. Greenberg    Symbolics, Incorporated
    Richard Greenblatt      Lisp Machines Incorporated (LMI)
    Martin L. Griss         University of Utah and Hewlett-Packard Incorporated
    Steven Handerson        Carnegie-Mellon University
    Charles L. Hedrick      Rutgers University
    Gail Kaiser             Carnegie-Mellon University
    Earl A. Killian         Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
    Steve Krueger           Texas Instruments
    John L. Kulp            Symbolics, Incorporated
    Jim Large               Carnegie-Mellon University
    Rob Maclachlan          Carnegie-Mellon University
    William Maddox          Carnegie-Mellon University
    Larry M. Masinter       Xerox Corporation, Palo Alto Research Center
    John McCarthy           Stanford University
    Michael E. McMahon      Symbolics, Incorporated
    Brian Milnes            Carnegie-Mellon University
    David A. Moon           Symbolics, Incorporated
    Beryl Morrison          Digital Equipment Corporation
    Don Morrison            University of Utah
    Dan Pierson             Digital Equipment Corporation
    Kent M. Pitman          Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Jonathan Rees           Yale University
    Walter van Roggen       Digital Equipment Corporation
    Susan Rosenbaum         Texas Instruments
    William L. Scherlis     Carnegie-Mellon University
    Lee Schumacher          Carnegie-Mellon University
    Richard M. Stallman     Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Barbara K. Steele       Carnegie-Mellon University
    Guy L. Steele Jr.       Carnegie-Mellon University and Tartan Laboratories
                            Incorporated
    Peter Szolovits         Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    William vanMelle        Xerox Corporation, Palo Alto Research Center
    Ellen Waldrum           Texas Instruments
    Allan C. Wechsler       Symbolics, Incorporated
    Daniel L. Weinreb       Symbolics, Incorporated
    Jon L White             Xerox Corporation, Palo Alto Research Center
    Skef Wholey             Carnegie-Mellon University
    Richard Zippel          Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Leonard Zubkoff         Carnegie-Mellon University and Tartan Laboratories
                            Incorporated

Some contributions were relatively small; others involved enormous expenditures of effort and great dedication. A few of the contributors served more as worthy adversaries than as benefactors (and do not necessarily endorse the final design reported here), but their pointed criticisms were just as important to the polishing of Common Lisp as all the positively phrased suggestions. All of the people named above were helpful in one way or another, and I am grateful for the interest and spirit of cooperation that allowed most decisions to be made by consensus after due discussion.

Considerable encouragement and moral support were also provided by:

    Norma Abel              Digital Equipment Corporation
    Roger Bate              Texas Instruments
    Harvey Cragon           Texas Instruments
    Dennis Duncan           Digital Equipment Corporation
    Sam Fuller              Digital Equipment Corporation
    A. Nico Habermann       Carnegie-Mellon University
    Berthold K. P. Horn     Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Gene Kromer             Texas Instruments
    Gene Matthews           Texas Instruments
    Allan Newell            Carnegie-Mellon University
    Dana Scott              Carnegie-Mellon University
    Harry Tennant           Texas Instruments
    Patrick H. Winston      Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Lowell Wood             Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
    William A. Wulf         Carnegie-Mellon University and Tartan Laboratories
                            Incorporated

I am very grateful to each of them.

Jan Zubkoff of Carnegie-Mellon University provided a great deal of organization, secretarial support, and unfailing good cheer in the face of adversity.

The development of Common Lisp would most probably not have been possible without the electronic message system provided by the ARPANET. Design decisions were made on several hundred distinct points, for the most part by consensus, and by simple majority vote when necessary. Except for two one-day face-to-face meetings, all of the language design and discussion was done through the ARPANET message system, which permitted effortless dissemination of messages to dozens of people, and several interchanges per day. The message system also provided automatic archiving of the entire discussion, which has proved invaluable in the preparation of this reference manual. Over the course of thirty months, approximately 3000 messages were sent (an average of three per day), ranging in length from one line to twenty pages. Assuming 5000 characters per printed page of text, the entire discussion totaled about 1100 pages. It would have been substantially more difficult to have conducted this discussion by any other means, and would have required much more time.

The ideas in Common Lisp have come from many sources and been polished by much discussion. I am responsible for the form of this book, and for any errors or inconsistencies that may remain; but the credit for the design and support of Common Lisp lies with the individuals named above, each of whom has made significant contributions.

The organization and content of this book were inspired in large part by the MacLISP Reference Manual by David A. Moon and others [33], and by the LISP Machine Manual (fourth edition) by Daniel Weinreb and David Moon [55], which in turn acknowledges the efforts of Richard Stallman, Mike McMahon, Alan Bawden, Glenn Burke, and ``many people too numerous to list.''

I thank Phyllis Keenan, Chase Duffy, Virginia Anderson, John Osborn, and Jonathan Baker of Digital Press for their help in preparing this book for publication. Jane Blake did an admirable job of copy-editing. James Gibson and Katherine Downs of Waldman Graphics were most cooperative in typesetting this book from my on-line manuscript files.

I am grateful to Carnegie-Mellon University and to Tartan Laboratories Incorporated for supporting me in the writing of this book over the last three years.

Part of the work on this book was done in conjunction with the Carnegie-Mellon University Spice Project, an effort to construct an advanced scientific software development environment for personal computers. The Spice Project is supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Defense, ARPA Order 3597, monitored by the Air Force Avionics Laboratory under contract F33615-78-C-1551. The views and conclusions contained in this book are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or the U.S. Government.

Most of the writing of this book took place between midnight and 5 A.M. I am grateful to Barbara, Julia, and Peter for putting up with it, and for their love.

    Guy L. Steele Jr.
    Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
    March 1984

> Would it be wonderful if, under the
> pressure of all these difficulties, the
> Convention should have been forced
> into some deviations from that artifi-
> cial structure and regular symmetry
> which an abstract view of the subject
> might lead an ingenious theorist to
> bestow on a constitution planned in
> his closet or in his imagination?

        - James Madison, The Federalist
          No. 37, January 11, 1788

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