Letter to Rich Hickey

gistfile1.txt

Dear Rich Hickey,

Prompted by your recent publication of reflections on the origin of
Clojure, I recalled that you and I had had a message exchange that
sometime in 2005-7 about your plans in relation to Common Lisp.

From what I remember, it was a three-message exchange: you outlined
your plans, I responded by advocating extending ABCL, you responded by
explaining why the things you wanted to achieve--especially an
implementation of the STM model--were simply disjoint from extending
ANSI Common Lisp.

Unfortunately, I cannot seem to recall where this exchange took place.
Over the past several days, I have searched the j-devel mailing list
archives, the comp.lang.lisp archives, and my personal email archives
for any trace without success.

[j-devel]: https://sourceforge.net/p/armedbear-j/mailman/armedbear-j-devel/
[comp.lang.lisp]: https://github.com/noend2/comp.lang.lisp-archive.git

I whole-heartedly endorse your appraisal of the general toxicity of
the online Common Lisp “community” in the mid 2000s.  And from what I
remember, I believe that I made a snarky comment about how the ideas
for Clojure would be a “Greenspunning” effort which you graciously
ignored in your response.  Which is kinda ironic, for as a relative
Lisp newcomer in the mid-2000s, I experienced the same revulsion at
the hostility that greeted those who simply wanted to learn and/or
extend things about how Lisp was used.  Stockholm syndrome, perhaps?

I would ask for your help in locating copies of this message exchange,
and if it was a private exchange, your permission to publicize.  I
believe that such a “publication” (I mean nothing more than placing
the text files at a openly accessible stable URI) would a)
(unfortunately) provide supporting documentation to your
characterization of hostility, and b) expand the historical record on
the development of Clojure.  I understand that this is a “big ask”
from my part with neglible benefits to you to help locating this
exchange, but wished to have at least petitioned for your support
rather than not communicate anything at all.

In any event, congratulations on the well-deserved success of Clojure
and best wishes.

Sincerely,
Mark Evenson

@richhickey A request for help locating part of the history of Clojure. Not having an email or ability to message you on Twitter, I have tried to get creative but mentioning you in this gist.