04-27-2024 - Entropy is Good, and so is Lisp
====

In my ongoing effort to make the gopher hole more interesting, I was
inspired to add some randomness to the main, "landing" gophermap in
the form of a couple of "fill in the blank" phrases that are provided
by cgi binaries, a facility provided by the motsognir gopher server.

The first script provides a random self-deprecating description of me,
while the second random phrase describes my FRST project, drawn from
the "slogan picker" I had started in Zig.

But instead of Zig, I decided to write these two small items in Common
Lisp, as I've been bumping into it more frequently in the online
spaces I've been inhabiting of late.  This trivial application
provided a great opportunity to do something (anything!) functional
with Lisp, just to have a little more personal experience with this
language that so many brilliant people seem to recommend.

_parenthetical_: ( :) )

(I'm still Zig-curious, and would love to continue my exploration of
that language, but frankly, doing "simple" things in Zig has proven
more frustrating than expected, leaving me susceptible to the
influence of the Lispers and their other-worldly ways. ;) )

Of course, as it turns out, Common Lisp was frustrating in its own
ways, but I was finally succesful at building this trivial random
string outputter, learning how to navigate practical SBCL things
along the way: compiler errors, navigating Common Lisp / SBCL
docs, compiling into a static binary, etc.  

I will continue to explore Lisp when I've got the chance, and this
little test has encouraged me to look for that chance where I can
 -- such as an upcoming professional opportunity to work on a
minimally- scoped backend service using ABCL.

As for the gopher hole, this was a trivial add, of course, but I
think it is in the spirit of modern gopherspace to add/extend your
space with little things like this.  Gopherspace is a playground. :)

Oh, and that whole "company slogan poll" thing over at frstcomputer:
I may just end up switching from Zig to Lisp, assuming my paren keys
are in good working order...

))))))))
.