Cyber Surfer (············@cix.compulink.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <····················@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>,
: ····@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Michael Ginn) writes:
: > I'm considering purchasing Allegro Common Lisp for Windows 3.1. Does
: > anyone have experiences to share, good or bad? It's barely affordable
: > on my budget, so I don't want to get stuck with something that's
: > useless. I have a 486/50 w/16 megs ram, 40 megs free disk.
: >
: > Should I wait for the 32-bit version?
: Based on what I've seen while playing with Win32s, I'd say
: that a 32bit version would be a neat thing. I haven't made
: a comparison of a 16bit and 32bit Lisp, but you can expect
: some major advantages.
: > Appreciative of advice from those more experienced,
: My experience, as I said, is limited to C code for Windows 3.1,
: not Lisp systems, and not for Windows NT.
: Martin Rodgers
: --- Cyber Surfing on CIX ---
--
I tried to respond directly to Michael Ginn, but the message
kept bouncing back. Thus, Michael here it is:
We have been using CLOE, Symbolic's PC Common Lisp for a couple
of years. I was never thrilled with it, but it came with
CLIM 1.1 and did the job. We recently purchased Allegro CL\PC
and we are thrilled with it. Compared with CLOE, CL\PC is
3 1/2 times faster (based on tests we've run. I don't have
figures but the program is quite large). These tests didn't
involve window routines (created by the program). Recently,
someone else (here) added windows to their program. They claimed it
was extremely easy, and very similar to creating windows on
the Mac. I haven't done either, but I was very much impressed
with what he had done in a very short time period (looked exactly
like a Windows 3.1 window. I was fooled.) He was raving about
how simple it was. Also, he was very excited about how to call
foreign functions. He actually got the info from Allegro, but
he calls an object oriented function without the foreign function
interface. This was something for which he had no prior experience.
Anyway, in sum, we are thrilled with Allegro CL\PC, and I
can't wait to convert my stuff over to it. (By convert, I
mean the CLIM windows stuff. I think we only had to make
one change in his code, and it turned out to be non-CL
syntax. Within 15 minutes after getting CL\PC, we had his
non-window based program running. This includes the time to
load everthing!) If you are interested/need CLIM, Franz claims
it will be available sometime in '94. (probably late '94)
I highly recommend it.
Oh, the one major drawback. Although the windows are editor
buffers, including the Lisp Interpreter one, files must be
smaller than 32 K to edit them. It will compile and load larger
files, but 32 K is the limit on the editting. Everything
else is (has been to date) wonderful.
ben
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Benjamin Moreland | United Technologies Res Ctr |
| Assistant Res. Engineer | 411 Silver Lane, MS-85 |
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+---------------------------------------------------------+
In article <······················@sun1x.res.utc.com>,
···@PROBLEM_WITH_INEWS_DOMAIN_FILE (Ben Moreland) writes:
> someone else (here) added windows to their program. They claimed it
> was extremely easy, and very similar to creating windows on
> the Mac. I haven't done either, but I was very much impressed
> with what he had done in a very short time period (looked exactly
> like a Windows 3.1 window. I was fooled.) He was raving about
> how simple it was. Also, he was very excited about how to call
> foreign functions. He actually got the info from Allegro, but
> he calls an object oriented function without the foreign function
> interface. This was something for which he had no prior experience.
The review I read a few years ago made creating windows look
very easy. At that time, it was not the simplest thing to do
in C, and Lisp was one of the few languages other than C which
you could use for that platform.
> Oh, the one major drawback. Although the windows are editor
> buffers, including the Lisp Interpreter one, files must be
> smaller than 32 K to edit them. It will compile and load larger
> files, but 32 K is the limit on the editting. Everything
> else is (has been to date) wonderful.
This is a limitation of the way that Microsoft designed their
Windows system. Their edit windows and listboxes have silly
limits, due to the 64K maximun segment size. This limit should
not apply to Windows NT, but it does still apply to the Win32s
API layer for the 16bit Windows. If and when Win32c (note the
different name) appears, it should be a full 32bit system,
with many of the advantages of NT.
Until then, you will be probably stuck with 32K limit, unless
someone has written a "smart" edit control window. If you ask
in the relevant newsgroups, you may find out. I've forgotten
the group names...
Martin Rodgers
--- Cyber Surfing on CIX ---