Time to get busy!

[Mike McDonald]

  OK everyone, enough talk It's time to get busy! :-) Why don't people
start picking projects that they're interested in?

Kernel guys: why don't you start wokring with the CMUCL guys on
getting threads implemented in CMUCL and porting it to
FLUX/HURD/Linux/*BSD? That seems like a good first step.

Systems guys: we need the following:

    generic networking system including including protocols like ftp,
SMTP, news, NFS, ... Get a networking framework in place and start
writing daemons and services. (the framework doesn't need stacks yet.)

  windowing system: I'm doing CLIM.

  file systems: make sure that logical and physical pathnames work.
Work with the networkign guys to seamlessly interate the two. Build a
lisp friendly file system, including versions, ACLs, ... Implement all
of those user commands like cp, mv, ls, cat.

  persistent object store (POS): write one!

  web server: support and enhance CL-HTTP. Work with the POS guys to
add that to CL-HTTP.

Apps guys: we need lots and lots of apps, ranging from the simple to
the complex. Here's just a few, pick one or two. Pick one that's not
mentioned but you think is needed.

  tar
  
  gzip

  user FS commands: copy-file, show-file, rename-file, show-directory,
... Interface with the FS guys.

  Mail reader: use clim (OK, you have an excuse for the moment. I'll
do my best to get a reasonable subset out real soon now!) Start
thinking about what a mail reader should do. (An awful lot of it
doesn't have anything to do with the UI.)

  News reader: same goes for you. Support both local and remote news
feeds.

  Editor: take [GNU/X]emacs, hemlock, Zmacs, and that othe rone that
keeps getting mentioned, figure out what you can steal and what you
have to reimplement.

  Debugger: work with the CMUCL guys to get debugging/single stepping
working for Intel platforms. Once you have that done, work on a
windowed version.

  Spreadsheet: I seem to remember someone volunteering for that. :-)

  Personal finance package (aka quicken): integrate it with the
spreadsheet. Use the generic network services to get financial info
off the net.

  Web browser: that'd be nice to have too!

  OK now, time to put up or shut up. :-) Who's volunteering for which
part?

  For my part, I'm going to do CLIM and I'll help coordinate things on
the system and apps projects. Systems architecture is what I'm good
at and I've had over 15 years of lisp experience including LispM
usage. [Why do I feel like I'm running for office? :-)]

  Let's do it!

  Mike McDonald
  mikemac@engr.sgi.com