As an aside, I've never touched CL and know nothing about it save what little I've gleaned while working on XEmacs. For that matter, elisp was my first introduction to lisp, although I now occasionally do some work with scheme48 and use scsh quite a bit. So I'm biased in that that's all I know, and having implanted Scheme into a program, have a little experience with that. "Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull(a)sk.tsukuba.ac.jp&gt; writes: When I first started elisp programming (and occasionally now, for that matter) I saw all these differing ways of accomplising the same result and just about quit because I couldn't resolve which was better to use any any situation. As far as performance, readability, and style, elisp seems to be a crap shoot, and I'd really like to slim that down. Encouraging potential new contributors into overcoming 'lisp-anxiety' is also a big plus. As there seems to be more than a little FUD surrounding CL and the ammount of historical baggage it brings (and the supposedly steep learning curve), I think abolishing this FUD should be a first step for CL proponents. I'll fetch the hot coals... ;-) [snip] I too am at sea when it comes to theory (sad outcome of being a self-taught programmer). I can use scheme, and I can use elisp, and for that matter I can most probably use CL, but I am in no position to judge which should be the next substrate for XEmacs. However, having embedded scheme once, I would definatly be of more help in doing somthing similar again. I'm not adverse to learning new things (it's my personal opinion that when a person stops wanting to learn in this trade, it's time for them to get out), so teach me! Not only am I not on language theory, but I missed THAT too... (and I own almost every released bit of Warner animation... sniff... ;-]) -- Jareth Hein | jareth(a)camelot.co.jp | ハイン ジェラス Toolsmith & Program lead | http://www.camelot.co.jp | 開発部チーフ Camelot Software, Ltd. | |（株）キャメロット "It's a sad sign of the times when 'political machine' is redefined to include 'main-line battle tank'" - Ambassador Grossblunder