Publications

I'm working on technical books about Lisp and related topics, as well as some non-technical books (one of humor, one scifi novel, and maybe later even some on politics and/or philosophy). If you'd be interested in receiving email notification of the availability of such books, please send me email asking to be placed on the notification list.

Technical Literature

The Revised Maclisp Manual

In 1983, I finished the multi-year task of writing The Revised Maclisp Manual (Saturday Evening Edition), sometimes known as The Pitmanual, and published it as a Technical Report at MIT's Lab for Computer Science. In 2007, I finished dusting that document off and published it to the web as the Sunday Morning Edition.

Common Lisp HyperSpec^TM

As Project Editor (1990-1994) for X3J13, the X3 subcommittee designing Common Lisp, I managed the creation of X3.226-1994, the ANSI standard for Common Lisp.

For Harlequin, I also created the Common Lisp HyperSpec^TM, a hypertext document that, although not itself the actual standard, contains equivalent material. Subject to some legal restrictions, it is possible to download it for personal use.

The CLHS won a Simpliciter Award.

Parenthetically Speaking

For a few years (since 1992), I've also authored a periodic column, called Parenthetically Speaking. It had been published in the now-defunct ACM publication Lisp Pointers, but I will probably continue the series in some other venue. These articles are both technical and philosophical in nature, but all relate to the Lisp family of programming languages.

Miscellaneous Technical Papers

I've also published technical papers in a variety of places on a variety of technical topics, from Lisp to AI to Hypertext Systems. (Although I certainly didn't invent the concept of “hypertext,” I did, in 1984, write one of the early hypertext editing systems--long before the internet and web browsers--and early enough that the word “hypertext” wasn't really in the general vocabulary then. I called it “non-linear text” in the paper I wrote on it.)

Many of the papers I've published in print are now available online, and more are coming online all the time. Click here for an index of what's available. And, of course, don't forget to check back periodically for more titles!

Fiction

Another Way Out

In 1996, I started writing a regular "column" for rec.arts.tv.soaps.cbs that I quickly spun off into a web site. It's a regular series of parodies of the CBS daytime drama The Young and the Restless.

Opinion

Miscellaneous Postings

If you're curious about my personality or opinions, you can find interviews with me and pointers to various places I've posted to at my miscellaneous postings page.

Politics

I've got a separate area for political advocacy, mostly so people interested in that general-purpose stuff don't have to get confused by all the non-political technobabble in some of the other areas of my site.

Personal FAQ

I maintain a Personal FAQ, which contains remarks about various "administrative" issues that have come up repeatedly. Some of those are probably political, and maybe I'll move them to the Politics area at some point. But for now, they are distinct.