Today, I released sbcl-1.5.0 – with no particular reason for the minor version bump except that when the patch version (we don’t in fact do semantic versioning) gets large it’s hard to remember what I need to type in the release script. In the 17 versions (and 17 months) since sbcl-1.4.0, there have been over 2900 commits – almost all by other people – fixing user-reported, developer-identified, and random-tester-lesser-spotted bugs; providing enhancements; improving support for various platforms; and making things faster, smaller, or sometimes both.

It’s sometimes hard for developers to know what their users think of all of this furious activity. It’s definitely hard for me, in the case of SBCL: I throw releases over the wall, and sometimes people tell me I messed up (but usually there is a resounding silence). So I am running a user survey, where I invite you to tell me things about your use of SBCL. All questions are optional: if something is personally or commercially sensitive, please feel free not to tell me about it! But it’s nine years since the last survey (that I know of), and much has changed since then – I'd be glad to hear any information SBCL users would be willing to provide. I hope to collate the information in late March, and report on any insight I can glean from the answers.