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From: kmp@harlequin.com (Kent Pitman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: $350.00 ANSI standard?
Date: 03 Apr 97 21:54:53 GMT
Organization: Harlequin Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA
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Message-ID: <KMP.97Apr3215453@romulus.harlequin.com>
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In-reply-to: kmp@harlequin.com's message of 03 Apr 97 20:32:22 GMT

Oh, I realized after the fact that some reading this might not know
what the Common Lisp HyperSpec (TM) is.  As you could probably tell
from my last post, it is not hardcopy. It is available on the web and
you can download a copy for your own use or browse it at Harlequin.
(There may be other mirrors, too--we don't keep track of that.)

See http://www.harlequin.com/books/HyperSpec for the download info.
It takes 16MB on disk, but it's worth it if you have to deal with the
spec much at all.  If I do say so myself, it's a mega-cool document with
105 kilohyperlinks (<-- how often do you get to use that word? :-)

See http://www.harlequin.com/books/HyperSpec/FrontMatter/ to browse
Harlequin's webbed copy.  (But keep in mind that it will run much faster
if you download your own copy to your local web.)

See http://www.harlequin.com/books/HyperSpec/FrontMatter/About-HyperSpec.html#Legal
for information about the legal restrictions on those who do downloading.
I think most people will find them entirely reasonable.  They're mostly about
maintaining the integrity of the document; there's no dollars involved.

The Common Lisp HyperSpec is NOT the ANSI CL spec, but it is derived from it,
and is very similar (with only minor textual tweaks here and there to make it
work webbed).  If you need a truly official source, the ANSI spec is all you
can do.  But for most normal purposes, the CLHS is fine and at the price
(FREE), it's hard to beat.  It also comes cross-indexed against many design
documents that the X3J13 subcommittee used, so you can learn about how some
of the odd features of the language got to be that way.

I hope this doesn't seem like too much of a self-serving plug, but gee--
Harlequin and I tried to make this as much of a public service as we could,
and I don't exactly get royalties from it, so I'm entitled to make a fuss
over it once in a while, I think.

