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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Scheme and Common Lisp?

Kantrowitz & Margolin comp.lang.lisp FAQ
Scheme is a dialect of Lisp that stresses conceptual elegance and simplicity. It is specified in R4RS and IEEE standard P1178. (See the Scheme FAQ for details on standards for Scheme.) Scheme is much smaller than Common Lisp; the specification is about 50 pages, compared to Common Lisp's 1300 page draft standard. (See question [4-10] for details on standards for Common Lisp.) Advocates of Scheme often find it amusing that the Scheme standard is shorter than the index to CLtL2.
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Which should I learn, Common Lisp or Scheme? What's the difference?

Lisp FAQ
Common Lisp is powerful but ugly. Scheme is small and clean, but the standard only defines the inner core of the language. If I had to deliver an application I'd probably use Common Lisp; if I were teaching a course I might use Scheme (but with Common Lisp macros).
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Is Scheme a lisp?

Frequently Asked Questions for comp.lang.lisp
Scheme is a member of the greater family of Lisp languages, assuming that is considered to include others like Dylan and Emacs Lisp. The design of Scheme predates the ANSI Common Lisp standard, and some CL features such as lexical scoping may be considered to have been derived from Scheme. More detailed comparative discussions don't generally prove very productive; those that are interested in discussing Scheme should first consider discussing it in comp.lang.
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Why doesn't Common Lisp have continuations?

Frequently Asked Questions for comp.lang.lisp
Continuations are a great theoretical tool; if a language has first-class, multiply invocable continuations then one can build threads, exceptions, coroutines, and the kitchen sink on top. However, there is an implementation burden with continuations; supporting first-class, multiply invocable continuations complicates things tremendously for the Lisp implementor.
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Why does Common Lisp have "#'"?

Kantrowitz & Margolin comp.lang.lisp FAQ
is a macro-character which expands #'FOO to (FUNCTION FOO). Symbols in Lisp have two bindings, one for values and one for functions, allowing them to represent both variables and functions, depending on context. #'FOO accesses FOO's lexical function binding in a context where the value interpretation would normally occur. #' is also used to create lexical closures for lambda expressions.
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What is Pearl Common Lisp?

Kantrowitz & Margolin comp.lang.lisp FAQ
When Apple Computer acquired Coral Software in January 1989, they re-released Coral's Allegro Common Lisp and its optional modules as Macintosh Allegro Common Lisp (now just Macintosh Common Lisp). Coral's other product, Pearl Lisp, was discontinued at that time. Pearl Lisp provides a subset of the functionality of MACL 1.3 and is not even fully CLtL1-compatible (e.g., the implementation of defstruct is different). Despite rumors to the contrary, Pearl Lisp is not and never was public domain.
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Where can I get a copy of the ANSI Common Lisp standard? What is ISO Lisp?

Kantrowitz & Margolin comp.lang.lisp FAQ
of December 8, 1994, Common Lisp is now an official ANSI Standard: ANSI X3.226:1994 American National Standard for Programming Language Common LISP (X3J13). Copies of the ANSI/X3.226 standard may be purchased from the American National Standards Institute 11 West 42nd Street New York, NY 10036 For more information, visit the ANSI home page at http://www.ansi.org/ A web version of the ANSI Common Lisp standard is not available. The official ANSI standard is available only in hardcopy form.
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What is the equivalent of EXPLODE and IMPLODE in Common Lisp?

Kantrowitz & Margolin comp.lang.lisp FAQ
Hopefully, the only reason you need to do this is as part of trying to port some old MacLisp code to Common Lisp. These functions predated the inclusion of strings as a first-class data type in Lisp; symbols were used as strings, and they ere EXPLODEd to allow the individual characters to be manipulated in a list.
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What is Lisp?

Lisp FAQ
Lisp is a family of programming languages descended from a language John McCarthy invented (or more accurately, discovered) in the late 1950s. The two main dialects now are Common Lisp and Scheme. We're working on a new dialect called Arc.
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Staging Area for the Common Lisp FAQ
But you now wish to add a special case. Simple: (defun foo (bar &optional (special-case nil)) (if special-case 0 (+ bar 42))) (foo 3) 45 (foo 3 t) 0 Rather than having to write two functions, with the oldest one delegating to the new one, you simply amend the existing one with optional arguments, all of which you give a default value that you can now account for in the new version.
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In the context of Common Lisp, what is Symmetric-multiprocessing?

Allegro Common Lisp FAQ
SMP Lisp is one in which performance can scale with processor count as well as with processor speed. It makes "just add more cpus" an option for dealing with increased load. It's pretty well known that a problem has to factor in an unusual way for this to work, whatever language and library is used.
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What books should I read to learn more about Common Lisp?

Common Lisp FAQ
Peter Seibel's Practical Common Lisp, a.k.a. PCL, is a good starting place if you already know how to program in some other language. It's available online at http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book and in dead tree form from Apress. It has been widely praised and won a Productivity Award in the technical book category of the 16th Annual Jolt Product Excellence Awards. PCL covers almost all aspects of the language and focuses on how to actually put them together to build non-trivial programs.
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Is there a set of solutions to the problems in ANSI Common Lisp?

Lisp FAQ
Unfortunately not. I was supposed to write one, but we started Viaweb right after the book went to press, and I never got around to it.
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What is the difference between a scheme closing and a scheme terminating?

FAQs
A scheme is closed when no new entrants are allowed to join and, sometimes, when benefits stop building up. A scheme is terminated when its sponsoring company terminates its responsibility to pay contributions.
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Where can I find free lisp compilers or interpreters?

Frequently Asked Questions for comp.lang.lisp
A lightweight common lisp interpreter and compiler, which compiles to bytecode, and runs on Windows, AmigaOS, Acorns, OS/2 and most flavours of Unix. CLISP's implementation of CLOS is currently not quite complete. CLISP is licensed under the GNU GPL. CMUCL interpreter and optimizing compiler to native code running on a few flavours of Unix (including x86/FreeBSD, x86/Linux and sparc/Solaris). CMUCL can be difficult to compile; it requires itself to build itself, and bootstrapping is an issue.
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Where can I buy a professional lisp system?

Frequently Asked Questions for comp.lang.lisp
Franz Inc's Allegro Common Lisp is a fine lisp development environment. See their website for more detailsLCL Another offering from Xanalys, LispWorks has a different set of extensions above the ANSI specification from LCLMCL A commercial natively multithreaded implementation of Common Lisp for various Unixes.Symbolics Common Lisp
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What online resources are there for lisp users?

Frequently Asked Questions for comp.lang.lisp
A non-normative transferral of the official ANSI standard for Common Lisp to the hypertext medium, by Kent Pitman.Association of Lisp Users
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What is the difference between the flu and a common cold?

City of Shaker Heights - Health
Common cold and the flu are both caused by viruses, and they are often confused. There is a lot of overlap in symptoms, however there are important differences. The cold is much more common, and the flu is much more serious. A mild case of the flu is generally worse than a bad cold. Many people mistakenly believe that their, “Flu shot didn’t work,” because they mistake what is really a cold for the flu.
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What's the difference between the flu and a common cold?

What's the difference between the flu and a common cold? - H...
There are very important differences between the flu and common cold, so take note! Having a cold usually means having a stuffy nose and sore throat, along with a mild-to-moderately uncomfortable feeling in your chest. You'll probably be sneezing, coughing, and feeling a bit achy, too. The flu, on the other hand, can mean really bad news. Yes, the flu makes you sneeze. It can also give you a stuffy nose and sore throat.
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What is the difference between fresco lime plaster and the more common lime plaster?

Frequently Asked Questions about Historic Masonry
Both of these plasters are typically used for interior applications, but fresco lime plaster is composed of aged lime putty and fine aggregates.
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How common is it?

Obesity FAQ - Special Sections > Weighed Down > The Issues |...
In 1999, there were 58,476 deaths due to heart disease in California. This was 26 percent of the total number of deaths from all causes.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Allergic Asthma - XOLAIR (O...
The National Institutes of Health estimates that 60% of the people in the United States with asthma have allergic asthma.
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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DEFINED BENEFIT SCHEME AND THE DEFINED CONTRIBUTORY SCHEME?

Welcome to First Guarantee Pension Limited.
Whereas the Defined Benefit pegs the amount a retiree could receive, the new scheme, based on Defined Contribution (DC), is a function of the level of an employee and employer's contribution in addition to returns on investment. Under the DC, the pension is immediately funded as funds exist from the outset and payments will be made as and when due.
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What is the difference between preferred and common shares?

HUGO BOSS AG Questions & Answers
Preferred shares carry no voting rights. Preferred shares also entitle the holder to a EUR 0.01 higher dividend per share than the common share. You will find further details in our statutes.
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What's the difference between preferred and common stock?

Online Stock Market Trading, Stock Investment Research - Fir...
In some aspects, preferred stock is similar to a fixed-income security. Dividends are fixed regardless of company earnings, and in the event of bankruptcy, preferred stock has priority to the company's assets over common stock. However, preferred stock has limited voting rights and some preferred stocks come with a call provision to protect the issuer.
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What is the difference between certified and common seed?

Graham Turf Seeds Ltd
The biggest difference is the genetic purity, or quality assurance. Certified seed is tracked from the grower to the end user, so you can always review the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP) trials and find out exactly what you’re getting. Common seed is not tracked, and generally has lower germ and purity and a higher weed seed count.
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How do I call non-Lisp functions from Lisp?

Kantrowitz & Margolin comp.lang.lisp FAQ
Most Lisp implementations for systems where Lisp is not the most common language provide a "foreign function" interface. As of now there has been no significant standardization effort in this area. They tend to be similar, but there are enough differences that it would be inappropriate to try to describe them all here.
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