
Paul Graham: Lisp in Web-Based Applications (2001) - tosh
http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt
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tosh
Interesting comment on evolving code (& keyword parameters):

> Rtml even depended heavily on keyword parameters, which up to that time I
> had always considered one of the more dubious features of Common Lisp.
> Because of the way Web-based software gets released, you have to design the
> software so that it's easy to change. And Rtml itself had to be easy to
> change, just like any other part of the software. Most of the operators in
> Rtml were designed to take keyword parameters, and what a help that turned
> out to be. If I wanted to add another dimension to the behavior of one of
> the operators, I could just add a new keyword parameter, and everyone's
> existing templates would continue to work. A few of the Rtml operators
> didn't take keyword parameters, because I didn't think I'd ever need to
> change them, and almost every one I ended up kicking myself about later. If
> I could go back and start over from scratch, one of the things I'd change
> would be that I'd make every Rtml operator take keyword parameters.

