This was a lot of fun. Among many other things, I found out that Ron Garret (lisper) wants to get Joe Sixpack to host his own webservices -- his Google, his Facebook, etc. -- so that he controls his data and so on. It was mindblowing to realize someone else (and someone respected) had this crazy idea as well and wasn't rejecting it out of hand.
All this effort goes into engineering constraints that at least a significant constituent of users (those new to programming, or those just looking to get a facebook app out asap) are actively hindered by. I think the pressure to over-engineer/industrial-strength-ify comes from two concerns:
a) those who want to make the code go faster, and
b) those who are afraid of what nameless other programmers might do and how to avoid stepping on each other's toes. (See, for example, http://arclanguage.org/item?id=8495)
I have a lot of sympathy for a) after my recent experiences, and I think we should try harder to work on performance without compromising Core Lisp Principles (tm).
To those concerned about b) I say, "go use Java" :p When I program in lisp I expect to have just a handful of collaborators, and I expect to know the antecedents of any libraries and modules I use. And to have lots of unit tests for maximum paranoia. Trust, but verify.
No lisp meet ups ever occur in Canada! - ugh :( And In all likelihood I'm probably like one of 5 people in Canada who both uses lisp and enjoys it. grumble, grumble...
Plus, while I'm ranting, it really kinda sux not having local lispers around to drink beer with :). Oh well.... after the fifth pint we're all lispers anyways.
