LISP and Symbolic Computation, 10(2)99

Editorial

Bob Kessler and Carolyn Talcott

This issue kicks off the tenth year of the Lisp and Symbolic Computation Journal. You may notice that on this anniversary, we have updated the aims and scope to better reflect the evolution of the journal's focus. Lisp has a long and rich tradition of being the birth placefor many new ideas. It has also been characterized as steadily evolving over its 35+ years. Just as Lisp has evolved, so has this journal. Lisp has always been well grounded in theory, yet has not forsaken the practicalities of real implementations. During the last ten years, the journal has always sought a balance between theory and practice and especially targeted those papers that have shown application of theory into practice. We feel strongly of the importance of this kind of breadth and will continue to solicit archival articles spanning the spectrum.

The revised list of topic areas also reflects the broad applicability of the imperative functional programming style. From type theory and semantics-based program manipulation to implementation techniques and application to parallel and distributed systems, the journal offers an eclectic array of topics. We will continue to promote a mixture of issues with contributed papers and those focused on a special topic. The special topics issues allow amore in-depth look at a particular area and can be used as a good reference guide to the latest concepts and ideas.The over 3500 pages of quality articles during the first ten years of this journal is a strong foundation for the next ten years. We will build on this foundation, strive for quality, and work to make the Lisp and Symbolic Computation Journal the pre-eminent place to publish articles in the imperative functional programming arena. To help with this goal we plan to enhance the editorial capabilities with a small group of associate editors.

June 2003 - hosc@brics.dk