[uk-lispers] [uk-lispers-bounces at alu.org: Auto-discard notification]

[Nick Levine]

Two days after I fiddled with the list settings, we get our first
false positive in years. 

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Subject: Auto-discard notification
From: uk-lispers-bounces at alu.org
Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:00:22 -0800

To: Lispers in the UK <uk-lispers at alu.org>
From: p2.lisp at googlemail.com
Subject: Re: [uk-lispers] Reduced moderation effort for uk-lispers

At 1:43 PM +0000 12/1/13, Nick Levine wrote:
>[...]
>Lack of traffic is, I reckon, for neither of the reasons you
>suggest. Rather, there is almost no "lisp in the UK" activity to
>discuss.

Although for nearly 30 years, I have used lisp almost every working 
day ... mostly in the UK if recently not for the UK, in my wee world 
it can sometimes feel as if there aren't many (any!) UK lisp users 
about. That seems especially the case when seeking able people with 
lisp, design and business skills for paid work.

Isn't the nature of a lot of lisp work that the people doing it are 
scattered about the world, that geographical location is of 
diminishing significance. We have many tools to hand which support 
and encourage communication, sharing, collaboration. The key 
ingredient is often trust. Beside I can't think of much that makes 
any lisp work in the UK be intrinsically British (other than 
documentation spelling perhaps).

I've been meaning to get up to London to a uk-lispers meeting for 
ages, if only just to show support, but it's quite a slog after a 
day's work from Kent where I am. Besides beer and car driving don't 
mix so well.  I was hoping for the coincidence of a meeting and when 
I happen to be in London anyway, I don't think that's happened yet.

 From back in the day when I hosted BSUG (British Symbolics Users 
Group) for some years, through assorted conferences and other get 
togethers, I've grown the impression that most with lips interest 
come and go in the way a sack of potatoes might, that is passively 
waiting to be served and pampered as if someone was selling something 
(ie. using meetings like a walk through a shopping mall, with no 
sense of contributing anything). Perhaps valid in the days of big 
bribing lisp vendors, but not so these days. That has dimmed my 
interest in reaching out to other lispers, besides I'm not really a 
CS sort. But y'all just getting enough oomph to meet at a pub seems 
so stand-out proactive, that I've been hoping uk-lispers might catch 
on and grow.

A reason why I tend not to post lisp stuff anywhere in public is that 
I've had too many experiences of know-it-all college kids megaphoning 
offensive messages when they jump to ignorant conclusions and run 
away with their imaginations. And on the other end of the scale, I'm 
a great believer in the value of colloquial conversation, and that 
can all too often be out of tune with the pedantic (quasi autistic) 
style of most pros who have climbed the pecking order in software 
engineering.

Meanwhile I communicate in private with a few lisp users that are 
scattered around the world. These are people that I have learned to 
trust to keep my dirty laundry to themselves. After all, the reason 
for reaching out is often because we're stuck, confused, ignorant, 
misguided, lost, jumped to the wrong conclusion, being an idiot, and 
generally showing the opposite of the grand side of ourselves. That 
may be fine, even fun for the ingenue, but doesn't look so good for 
those who earn a living using lisp.

Gossip in a pub could be just the ambiance that I'd relish, but 
distance has been a killjoy.

Anyway, apologies for the verbosity, but I just had to raise hand in 
response to Nick's assertion/question.

- peter