Lisp: Research and Experience

J.UCS Special Issue

In the last couple of years, we have seen a growing interest in the Lisp programming language and its various dialects, including Common Lisp, Scheme, ISLISP, Dylan, and so on. Several user group meetings, workshops and conferences have been organized in recent years, with great success. Especially in Europe, but also elsewhere, Lisp is gaining momentum.

With the European Lisp Symposium, we aim to start a series of annual events that is especially suitable for novel research results, but also for insights and lessons learned from practical applications and education perspectives, all involving Lisp dialects. The first symposium was organized in Bordeaux, France, on May 22 and 23, 2008. For this symposium, we have received 15 submissions, and after a careful review process, the program committee selected seven of them for presentation at the main track of the symposium. Furthermore, we have received seven additional submissions for a work-in-progress track, which describe ongoing work that is not ready for publication yet. Those work-in-progress papers were discussed at the symposium using a writers workshop format for giving feedback to the authors in a dedicated session.

The program committee considered six of the of the papers presented at the main track of the symposium worthy of being invited for a journal publication. Their authors submitted extended versions of these papers, and after another thorough review process with additional reviewers, they have indeed reached the necessary level of quality and maturity.

This special issue contains these papers. I am very grateful to the program committee of the original symposium and to the reviewers for this special issue, who have both volunteered to spend a considerable amount of their time to ensure a successful effort.

The success of the 1st European Lisp Symposium was only possible because of the great efforts of many people. I would especially like to thank the local organizer Robert Strandh for providing the facilities of the University of Bordeaux 1 and the local organization team for taking care of the many important details that are necessary to run such an event.

Program Committee for the Symposium

• Marco Antoniotti, Università Milano Bicocca, Italy
• Marie Beurton-Aimar, Université Bordeaux 1, France
• Jerry Boetje, College of Charleston, USA
• Theo D'Hondt, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
• Irène Durand, Université Bordeaux 1, France
• Marc Feeley, Université de Montréal, Canada
• Erick Gallesio, Université de Nice / Sophia Antipolis, France
• Rainer Joswig, Independent Consultant, Germany
• António Leitão, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Henry Lieberman, MIT, USA
• Scott McKay, ITA Software, Inc., USA
• Ralf Möller, Hamburg University of Technology, Germany
• Nicolas Neuss, Universität Karlsruhe, Germany
• Kent Pitman, PTC, USA
• Christophe Rhodes, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK
• Jeffrey Mark Siskind, Purdue University, USA
• Didier Verna, EPITA Research and Development Laboratory, Paris, France

Organizing Committee for the Symposium

• Antoine Allombert
• Marie Beurton-Aimar
• Irène Durand
• Nicole Lun
• Robert Strandh

Sponsors

• Franz, Inc., http://www.franz.com
• LispWorks Ltd., http://www.lispworks.com

Reviewers for this Special Issue

• Marco Antoniotti, Università Milano Bicocca, Italy
• Giuseppe Attardi, Università di Pisa, Italy
• Marie Beurton-Aimar, Université Bordeaux 1, France
• Eric Bodden, McGill University, Montréal, Canada
• Jerry Boetje, College of Charleston, USA
• Joachim De Beule, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
• Erick Gallesio, Université de Nice / Sophia Antipolis, France
• Robert Hirschfeld, Hasso-Plattner-Institut, Universität Potsdam, Germany
• Rainer Joswig, Independent Consultant, Germany
• António Leitão, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Brian Mastenbrook, USA
• Scott McKay, ITA Software, Inc., USA
• Ralf Möller, Hamburg, University of Technology, Germany
• Kent Pitman, PTC, USA
• Christian Queinnec, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France
• Éric Tanter, Universidad de Chile, Chile
• Michel Tilman, SecurIT, Belgium
• Didier Verna, EPITA Research and Development Laboratory, Paris, France