Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!decvax!ucbvax!BFLY-VAX.BBN.COM!dm
From: dm@BFLY-VAX.BBN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Help...looking for network anecdotes
Message-ID: <8802012047.AA29375@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 1 Feb 88 18:46:19 GMT
References: <8802011651.AA13576@PTT.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
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    ``The development of COMMON LISP would most probably not have been
    possible without the electronic message system provided by the
    ARPANET.  Design decisions were made on several hundred distinct
    points, for the most part by consensus, and by simple majority ote
    when necessary.  Except for two one-day face-to-face meetings, all
    of the language design and discussion was done through the ARPANET
    message system, which permitted effortless dissemination of
    messages to dozens of people, and several interchanges per day.
    The message system also provided automatic archiving of the entire
    discussion, which has proved invaluable in preparation of this
    reference manual.  Over the course of thirty months, approximately
    3000 messages were sent (an averabe of three per day), ranging in
    length from one line to twenty pages... It would have been
    substantially more difficult to have conducted this discussion by
    any other means, and would have required much more time.''

		Guy Steele, ``COMMON LISP: the language'' (Digital
		    Press, 1984).  pp xi-xii.