- - First name: Yannick 
  
- - Last name: Gingras 
  
- - Email address: REMOVED
  
- - Phone number(s): N/A 
  
- - Postal code: N/A 
  
- - City: Montréal 
  
- - State or province: Québec 
  
- - Country: Canada 
  
- - Organization(s) you work for or study at 
  (please supply the name and city for each organization): 
  
  UQAM (Université du Québec À Montréal) (Montréal) 
  
  I'm an undergrad student at UQAM and I'm working as a research 
  assistant in bioinformatics for the summer. 
  
- - Fields of interest 
  (e.g. computer linguistics, numerical analysis, business software, 
  medicine, bioinformatics): 
  
  bioinformatics 
  
- - Have you written any Lisp-related papers? If so, please supply 
  bibliographical references (and URL's, if possible). 
  
  no 
  
- - Have you developed or participated in the development of any 
  Lisp-related programs or libraries? If so, please supply a URL, 
  if possible. 
  
  We are building a phylogenetic tree visualizer in Common Lisp. 
  Nothing released yet but it should be out by the end of the summer. 
  
- - Lisp variants you have used (e.g. Common Lisp, Scheme, Dylan): 
  
  Common Lisp 
  
- - Lisp variants you're currently using or intend to use in the 
  near future: 
  
  Common Lisp 
  Scheme 
  
- - Lisp implementations you have used 
  (e.g. CMUCL, Lispworks, Allegro Common Lisp): 
  
  CMUCL 
  SBCL 
  
- - Lisp implementations you're currently using or intend to use 
  in the near future: 
  
  CMUCL 
  SBCL 
  
- - Computer platforms on which you're using or deploying Lisp: 
  
  Debian GNU/Linux with Emacs + Slime 
  Fedora Core GNU/Linux with Emacs + Slime 
  
- - Number of years of experience with Lisp: 
  
  3 months 
  
- - Experience with other programming languages (please supply the 
  number of years and the name of the language): 
  
  C  : 4 years 
  C++ : 4 years 
  Python : 2 years 
  
- - Total number of years of programming experience: 
  
  4 years 
  
- - Do you use Lisp: 
  - at work (if so, how much) 
  
  I'm the only one who use Lisp in my research group but there are 
  absolutely no restrictions on the choice of the language.  As stated 
  earlier, I use Common Lisp to make a Web enabled phylonenetic tree 
  visualizer.  A phylogenetic tree is a tree of possible ancestors 
  reconstructed by looking at the similarities of the genomes. 
  
  The reconstruction of the tree is made in C++. 
  
  - for study (if so, how much) 
  
  no 
  
  - as a hobby (if so, how much) 
  
  Yes, I read Lisp books when I have some spare time.  I plan to redo 
  the GUI of OBB (http://openbeatbox.org/) in Common Lisp in a not too 
  distant futur. 
  
  
- - Are you using Lisp as much as you would like to? 
  If not, why not? 
  
  Yes, when I was presented the project I asked if there was 
  restrictions on the choice of the language.  They said no and no one 
  was shocked that I picked Common Lisp. 
  
- - Do you see any obstacles to further Lisp growth (if so, what 
  is the biggest obstacle in your opinion)? 
  
  There is no Lisp courses at our university.  Anyone who want to 
  learn Lisp has to do in on the side.  Many people learn C++ or PHP 
  on the side because they think that it will give them better job 
  opportunities. 
  
- - Would you be interested in a Lisp-related job or contract work? 
  
  Of course ! 
  
  : ) 
  
- - Is your organization interested in hiring Lisp programmers? 
  
  Every summer, our university picks a handful of students and offers 
  them research jobs.  Those are not in any particular language, 
  someone would not have to push too hard to use the language that he 
  wants. 
  
- - Are you currently participating in Lisp-related meetings? 
  If so, where and how often? 
  
  Yes 
  
  I started to attend the Montréal Scheme/Lisp User Group meetings 
  this summer.  The meetings are onece a month. 
  
  http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/mslug-home.html