Re: [ANN] Common Lisp Document Repository

Pascal Costanza <pc@p-cos.net> wrote:
+---------------
| CDR - The Common Lisp Document Repository
....
| Each CDR document will be identified by a number. Form and
| possible contents of CDR documents are not prescribed, but the goal
| is to provide the Common Lisp community with a way to unambiguously
| refer to a document by way of mentioning its CDR number.
+---------------

How does this differ from what has been referred to for the last
several years as CLRFIs? [Note: This is not an criticism, but a
simple request for information/elaboration/clarification...]


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock <rpw3@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607

Rob Warnock wrote:
> Pascal Costanza <pc@p-cos.net> wrote:
> +---------------
> | CDR - The Common Lisp Document Repository
> ...
> | Each CDR document will be identified by a number. Form and
> | possible contents of CDR documents are not prescribed, but the goal
> | is to provide the Common Lisp community with a way to unambiguously
> | refer to a document by way of mentioning its CDR number.
> +---------------
>
> How does this differ from what has been referred to for the last
> several years as CLRFIs? [Note: This is not an criticism, but a
> simple request for information/elaboration/clarification...]

We haven't specifically modeled CDR after CLRFI, and haven't taken a
look at CLRFI when we formulated the CDR "process". However, there are
surely similarities.

The main difference, as I see it, is that CDR is stripped down to the
barest essentials: there is no process defined for discussing concrete
CDR documents, we don't provide mailing lists, we don't prescribe how a
mailing list should be used and we don't prescribe the structure of a
CDR document. All we provide is a reference to a document - a CDR number
- and the guarantee that a document will not change, so that referring
to a CDR document will be unambiguous. We also don't endorse the use of
any CDR document, although of course we hope that CDR documents will
come up that are deemed so useful that they will be widely implemented.

The goal of CDR's minimalist approach is that more documents can be
accepted in a shorter amount of time. The fact that we don't do any
quality assurance is important here: Even if it happens that we as CDR
editors simply don't know enough about the matter of a concrete CDR
document so that we effectively cannot judge the material, we can still
accept it because there is no element in the CDR "process" that would
hinder the acceptance of such a document.

There is, of course, some minimal "process" involved. We hope that it
will be tested soon with concrete CDR submissions.


Pascal

P.S.: We don't want to discourage a more formal process in the long run.
At some stage, more binding standards / recommendations may be necessary
again. CDR documents could be a first step in that direction. In the
meantime, we hope that CDR is an sufficient improvement over the current
situation.


--
My website: http://p-cos.net
Closer to MOP & ContextL:
http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/

Pascal Costanza wrote:
> Rob Warnock wrote:
> > Pascal Costanza <pc@p-cos.net> wrote:
> > +---------------
> > | CDR - The Common Lisp Document Repository
> > ...
> > | Each CDR document will be identified by a number. Form and
> > | possible contents of CDR documents are not prescribed, but the goal
> > | is to provide the Common Lisp community with a way to unambiguously
> > | refer to a document by way of mentioning its CDR number.
> > +---------------
> >
> > How does this differ from what has been referred to for the last
> > several years as CLRFIs? [Note: This is not an criticism, but a
> > simple request for information/elaboration/clarification...]
>
> We haven't specifically modeled CDR after CLRFI, and haven't taken a
> look at CLRFI when we formulated the CDR "process". However, there are
> surely similarities.

It would be good to put the first two CLRFI submissions on CDR too.

"Rob Thorpe" <robert.thorpe@antenova.com> writes:
> Pascal Costanza wrote:
> > We haven't specifically modeled CDR after CLRFI, and haven't taken
> > a look at CLRFI when we formulated the CDR "process". However,
> > there are surely similarities.
> It would be good to put the first two CLRFI submissions on CDR too.

I guess the first one was more useful as a CLRFI test case than in
real life.

There would be a certain elegance to having CDR 2 be equal to CLRFI 2.

Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> "Rob Thorpe" <robert.thorpe@antenova.com> writes:
>> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>>> We haven't specifically modeled CDR after CLRFI, and haven't taken
>>> a look at CLRFI when we formulated the CDR "process". However,
>>> there are surely similarities.
>> It would be good to put the first two CLRFI submissions on CDR too.
>
> I guess the first one was more useful as a CLRFI test case than in
> real life.
>
> There would be a certain elegance to having CDR 2 be equal to CLRFI 2.

We, the CDR editors, don't know CLRFI 2 well enough to want to take the
responsibility to submit it as a CDR 2. We would welcome such a
submission, though.


Pascal

--
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/