[uk-lispers] hello uk lispers

[Christophe Rhodes]

"Paulo J. Matos" <pocmatos at gmail.com> writes:

> On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 10:25 AM, Holly Styles
> <hollystyles at fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>>  I'm reading this list.
>>
>> I have a purely hobbyist interest in LISP.
>>
>
> If you would have told me that you had a 'professional' interest in
> LISP and you are living in the UK, then you should let me know how you
> landed that job. :)

OK!

I have a long-standing sort-of-professional interest in Lisp, developing
from the time I did my PhD and needed some light relief, into part of my
research interests as a Lecturer in Computer Science at Goldsmiths.  A
very small part of what I do is use the experience I gained working on
aspects of SBCL[1] to prototype slightly wacky extensions of Common
Lisp, to see if they can be implemented without any real users actually
noticing.  (Examples of that: user-specializeable sequences[2], and
extensible mop:specializer[3]; I should say that most of my research is
not in the field of language design, and only some of the rest of the
time do I program in Lisps of any sort).  

I also currently have a bona fide industrial job working with lispers; a
newly-formed technology startup founded to improve mobile broadband.
How did I get this job?  Probably by being plausibly convincing in the
various things that I do, and willing to take on a certain amount of
financial risk.  Note that I wouldn't describe my role as a "lisp job",
but that's mostly my fault -- and I have described R as a Lisp on my
advodiary.

Speaking of which, keen readers of my advodiary might also be able to
infer the presence of other well-known Lispers in this country; what I
will say is to seize the opportunity to drag them along to a meetup,
because that presence might not last terribly much longer.  (I'll be
sticking around in the UK, though.)

Cheers,

Christophe

[1] <http://www.sbcl.org/>, in case anyone doesn't know :-)
[2] <http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas01cr/papers/ilc2007/sequences-20070301.pdf>;
[3] <http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas01cr/papers/els2008/paper.pdf>