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Common Lisp Koans

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Re: Common Lisp Koans

#3

Always curious as to why Google hosted/created these, anyone know why? I wasn't aware of Google using Common Lisp.

ITA Software — the company that wrote the engine behind Orbitz, Kayak, etc. and now runs Google Flights — was acquired by them a while back.

Re: Common Lisp Koans

#5
post #4

Always curious as to why Google hosted/created these, anyone know why? I wasn't aware of Google using Common Lisp.

https://google.github.io/styleguide/lispguide.xml

Thanks!, I had not seen the style guide. As someone else said, this probably comes from Google’s purchase of ITA. Common Lisp is stable, well documented, many fine implementations so I find it odd that there are only pockets of developers/companies who use it. Similar situation with Haskell.

Re: Common Lisp Koans

#6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://google.github.io/styleguide/lispguide.xml

Thanks!, I had not seen the style guide. As someone else said, this probably comes from Google’s purchase of ITA. Common Lisp is stable, well documented, many fine implementations so I find it odd that there are only pockets of developers/companies who use it. Similar situation with Haskell.

Low popularity, meaning it's much more difficult to find employees proficient in it, making it a bad proposition for companies... which keeps it unpopular. The vicious cycle of fashion.

Re: Common Lisp Koans

#7
post #3

Always curious as to why Google hosted/created these, anyone know why? I wasn't aware of Google using Common Lisp.

ITA Software — the company that wrote the engine behind Orbitz, Kayak, etc. and now runs Google Flights — was acquired by them a while back.

Off topic, but since I worked at Kayak let me expand a bit on its relationship to ITA as I understood it.

Airlines and hotels had data about flights and available rooms. Kayak needed this data to show it in your search. This could happen in a few ways:

1. The airline or hotel could send Kayak data that had a particular format, and Kayak would deal with it. A common format, especially for hotels IIRC, was invalid csv files.

2. The airline could send its flight data to ITA, which standardized it across all airlines that used the service. ITA was a separate company from Kayak and Google flights and other flight search engines; it aggregated data but was not a search engine. [EDIT: was not primarily a search engine. See comment below.] Kayak would buy data from ITA.

3. The airline or hotel could decline to let Kayak list its flights/rooms.

Since then Google bought ITA, breaking the [EDIT: partial] separation between the most common flight-data aggregator and flight search engines. (Which was probably good for competition; I was a little concerned about the merger.) And Kayak was bought out too, by one of its competitors.

Take all this with a grain of salt: this is what I remember from years ago, and it wasn't really my area. And I certainly don't speak for Kayak.

Re: Common Lisp Koans

#8
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITA Software — the company that wrote the engine behind Orbitz, Kayak, etc. and now runs Google Flights — was acquired by them a while back.

Off topic, but since I worked at Kayak let me expand a bit on its relationship to ITA as I understood it. Airlines and hotels had data about flights and available rooms. Kayak needed this data to show it in your search. This could happen in a few ways: 1. The airline or hotel could send Kayak data that had a particular format, and Kayak would deal with it. A common format, especially for hotels IIRC, was invalid csv…

Interesting! I wonder why ITA never offered a search engine themselves, if they had all the data aggregated. And boy do I love dealing with invalid CSVs... (especially ones that contain commas within the fields by accident)

Re: Common Lisp Koans

#9
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic, but since I worked at Kayak let me expand a bit on its relationship to ITA as I understood it. Airlines and hotels had data about flights and available rooms. Kayak needed this data to show it in your search. This could happen in a few ways: 1. The airline or hotel could send Kayak data that had a particular format, and Kayak would deal with it. A common format, especially for hotels IIRC, was invalid csv…

Interesting! I wonder why ITA never offered a search engine themselves, if they had all the data aggregated. And boy do I love dealing with invalid CSVs... (especially ones that contain commas within the fields by accident)

They did! Matrix.itasoftware.com

Re: Common Lisp Koans

#10
post #9
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! I wonder why ITA never offered a search engine themselves, if they had all the data aggregated. And boy do I love dealing with invalid CSVs... (especially ones that contain commas within the fields by accident)

They did! Matrix.itasoftware.com

Oh, nice. It looks pretty fancy, too. I’m surprised that Google didn’t axe it in favor of Google Flights.
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