LispForum

PRNGs typically use some sort of internal state to generate a sequence of "random" numbers. The seed is merely used to set that state. The question then turns to how you set the seed. If you need highly random numbers (like you're working on crypto algorithms), you're better of not using t...

I understand it wasn't an SBCL question. I assumed that it was a Lisp question, though, right? My only point was that, in general, GC's fight with copy-on-write because they typically store things like mark bits close to the objects they identify, and thus they have a tendency to write something to ...

To give a bit longer answer, there is a notion in the Lisp family of languages of Lisp-1 vs. Lisp-2. In a Lisp-1 variant (e.g., Scheme), symbols have only a single value. If you see the symbol LIST, for instance, it's always bound to the same thing. This is true whether the symbol appears in the fir...

Yes. In Emacs Lisp, you pretty much need to ignore the idea of files. The procedure is to load files into buffers and then examine the contents of the buffer. When you are done, possibly having modified the buffer, then you write the buffer back to a file.

Wow. I'm the old guy: 44.

That's a good reading list. If you can get through all that and soak it all up, you'll be doing quite well.

Linux has shared memory with copy on write (see the MAP_SHARED flag to mmap, I think). I'm not an expert on shared memory programming. That said, sharing the heap like this would likely be fruitless. Fork uses shared memory because C programs that fork are either spawning versions of themselves to h...

You can always learn something more in Emacs.

Welcome! Yes, this site is newbie friendly.

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