European discussion

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>]

I don't really see the bizarre ideas of Fitch, et al, as a threat to the
ISI standardization effort.  If they want to go off by themsleves and
develop a schemeish Lisp, with or without ISO standardization, that's no
problem.  If they want to fight the French for control of the "little
Lisp" effort that's no problem (for us) either.

The only threat is if they should somehow end up being the ONLY ISO Lisp
effort, or if they want to use some name confusable with "Common Lisp"
for their thing, or if instead of doing something distinct and separate
from Common Lisp they want us to seriously consider their ideas in
defining the Common Lisp standard.  If any of those things happen, we
drop ISO like a hot potato and proceed to plan B, but I really don't see
any of these as being at all likely.

I'm happy either if our effort ends up being "ISO LISP" and there are no
other Lisps, or if our thing ends up being "ISO Common Lisp" and nothing
else has a name close to that.  Either way, we get our standard and
nobody gets confused by competing efforts.  In defining "our" Lisp, we
should be willing to listen to other groups, but we should not be in a
postion of having to give in to them if their goals do not coincide with
ours.  That's my bottom line.

-- Scott