Friday, December 13, 2002

I wanted to install Linux to have a look at the various Common Lisp offerings on that platform. Specifically I wanted to experiment with the McCLIM project and Linux appears to be the main supported OS at the moment. There are some nice looking CLIM based applications using the McCLIM implementation. I didn't want to extensively re-partition my system so I tried Knoppix, a live Linux distribution on CD. You put the CD in the drive, boot from it and it starts up, automatically detecting hardware. In about 3 minutes I was running Linux and my printer, CD-Writer and other hardware just worked. Very impressive. Now to get a Common Lisp system operating under it. It's Debian based so hopefully won't be too difficult to find something. 12:47:32 AM

For the curious, Lojban is a constructed language. The grammer of the language is based on principles of logic, is described by a YACC grammer, and is easily machine parseable. Lojban speech is audio-visually isomorphic. That is, everything that can be spoken can be expressed in writing. According to the 'Why Lojban' text: "the writing system has a grapheme for every phoneme and vice versa, and there are no supra-segmental phonemes (such as tones or pitch) which are not represented in the writing system." Lojban is a language in the same mold as Loglan, which received mention in the June 1960 issue of Scientific American. It has also received mention in some Robert Heinlen books (Moon is a Harsh Mistress for example). One of the ideas behind the creation of Lojban and Loglan was to test the Saphir Whorf Hypothesis. A book is available describing the language, The Complete Lojban Language. It's a great quality hardcover book and if constructed languages interest you it may be worth a purchase. 12:25:40 AM

Nick Nicholas has updated his work on the Lojban Level 0 brochure. He wants people: to double check the Arabic; to see if you dislike Trebuchet for Lojban less than Andale Mono. Trebuchet certainly makes a statement; I'm just not sure if it's the right statement for Lojban text. One of Nick's more interesting projects was translating Hamlet into Klingon. Obligatory Common Lisp Reference: At one point in time, Guy Steele, author of 'Common Lisp, The Language' was a member of the lojban community. 12:16:54 AM