I was wondering if anyone could email me their thoughts on the new
lisp 2.0 on the mac. I am just getting into lisp, and have a mac,
so it seems like a good choice, but I want to know, does it generate
code that is fast, can I really use it to develope general purpose
applications, etc.
Sam Griffith Jr.
Pencom Software
···@pencom.com
From: Bill Andersen
Subject: Re: Mac Lisp 2.0
Date:
Message-ID: <42457@mimsy.umd.edu>
In article <······················@news.mentorg.com> ····@ptd.mentrog.com (Sam Griffith x7588) writes:
>I was wondering if anyone could email me their thoughts on the new
>lisp 2.0 on the mac. I am just getting into lisp, and have a mac,
>so it seems like a good choice, but I want to know, does it generate
>code that is fast, can I really use it to develope general purpose
>applications, etc.
Thought I'd post this for anyone who's interested. Our group at
UoMD has bee using MACL (now MCL with 2.0) for several years. Although
the stuff we've done is not as fancy some other work I know of, we
consider MCL to be first-rate. You get full (and better yet, easy to
use) access to the Mac Toolbox interface stuff. We have used these
features extensively to implement interfaces for several AI systems.
In addition, the CLOS implementation supplied starting with MCL 2.0 is
really nice; we have found it to be quite fast.
On the downside, you will need *plenty* of memory - at least 5MB if
you want to do anything real. 20MB is better. Note, however, that for
the Lisp world, this is not a lot of memory, so it's not really a
deficit as far as I'm concerned. Also, one of the major drawbacks to
MCL, for one accustomed to workstation lisps, is the lack of
unobtrusive (was that a double negative?) garbage collection. If the
applications you want to build need to provide the illusion of full
availability, you'll find MCL's GC to be quite annoying. [Apple - any
comment on this?]
Bottom line: I think MCL is the next best thing to having a Symbolics,
and a hell of a lot cheaper.
--
Bill Andersen (·······@cs.umd.edu) |
University of Maryland | clever .signature saying
Department of Computer Science | under construction
College Park, Maryland 20742 |
In article <·····@mimsy.umd.edu> ·······@cs.umd.edu (Bill Andersen) writes:
Also, one of the major drawbacks to
MCL, for one accustomed to workstation lisps, is the lack of
unobtrusive (was that a double negative?) garbage collection. If the
applications you want to build need to provide the illusion of full
availability, you'll find MCL's GC to be quite annoying. [Apple - any
comment on this?]
We'll soon be releasing a new version with an EGC. It's currently being
used in-house and by a small number of testers.
-andrew