From: Henner Bartels
Subject: Interprocess communication in Common Lisp ?
Date:
Message-ID: <2bartel.772272064@rzdspc5>
Currently LISP doesn't support mechanisms to communicate with other
LISP processes running on the same (or distant) machines nor it is
capable of communicating with other tasks like h/w drivers written
in C or Forth. I agree that not every machine can handle multiple
tasks so that IPC wouldn't be useful on that machines, on the other
hand I think the avaibility to communicate with other tasks will
enhance the power of LISP. What do you think ? What would you like
to see in such a message system ?
I dream about a small set of LISP functions used to generate
messages and/or message ports, read, send and look for new messages.
The LISP interface would be all the same (allthough the way the
message system gets implemented might be different). A message
interface to other languages than could be written on demand.
************************************************************************
* Henner Bartels * Capitalism is in no way *
* * superior to communism. *
* ·······@rzdspc5.informatik.uni-hamburg.de * It simply remained. *
************************************************************************
In article <·················@rzdspc5>,
·······@rzdspc5.informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Henner Bartels) wrote:
> Currently LISP doesn't support mechanisms to communicate with other
> LISP processes running on the same (or distant) machines nor it is
> capable of communicating with other tasks like h/w drivers written
> in C or Forth. I agree that not every machine can handle multiple
> tasks so that IPC wouldn't be useful on that machines, on the other
> hand I think the avaibility to communicate with other tasks will
> enhance the power of LISP. What do you think ? What would you like
> to see in such a message system ?
I think I'd like to see the message-passing system be transparent
at most levels - based on something like an Object Request Broker,
so the code can just reference objects (in which case the underlying
mechanisms retrieve that object from whereever it has been defined to
reside), or write or perform actions on objects (in which case the
services are performed by whatever machine they reside on, and to the
objects wherever they are.) I think this would be a more useful
abstraction then mucking around with opening ports, making links, and
such.
> I dream about a small set of LISP functions used to generate
> messages and/or message ports, read, send and look for new messages.
> The LISP interface would be all the same (allthough the way the
> message system gets implemented might be different). A message
> interface to other languages than could be written on demand.
Since an ORB (or at least CORBA) is supposed to emphasize interoperability
and distrbuted processing, implementing to *that* standard would make
LISP easily (heh) fit into a community of other COTS software.
>
> ************************************************************************
> * Henner Bartels * Capitalism is in no way *
> * * superior to communism. *
> * ·······@rzdspc5.informatik.uni-hamburg.de * It simply remained. *
> ************************************************************************
... Rick
In article <··················@duffy.den.mmc.com> ·····@pogo.den.mmc.com (Rick Duffy) writes:
Since an ORB (or at least CORBA) is supposed to emphasize interoperability
and distrbuted processing, implementing to *that* standard would make
LISP easily (heh) fit into a community of other COTS software.
Did I mention that ILU is CORBA-compatible :-?
Bill
--
Bill Janssen <·······@parc.xerox.com> (415) 812-4763 FAX: (415) 812-4777
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94304
URL: ftp://parcftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/misc/janssen.html
In article <·················@rzdspc5> ·······@rzdspc5.informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Henner Bartels) writes:
Currently LISP doesn't support mechanisms to communicate with other
LISP processes running on the same (or distant) machines nor it is
capable of communicating with other tasks like h/w drivers written
in C or Forth.
This is probably off the topic, but our Inter-Language Unification
system, ILU, supports Lisp processes talking to other Lisp processes,
either on the same machine or other machines, and sharing each others'
objects (in a very limited, but useful, way). It also supports
talking from Lisp to C, Modula-3, or C++, in a generic, standard way.
It also provides a module system/language for static description of CL
interfaces.
Publicly available free. Can be used commercially, free. Currently
only working in Lisp with Franz Allegro CL, but designed to be easy to
port. See
ftp://parcftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/ilu.html
for details.
Bill
--
Bill Janssen <·······@parc.xerox.com> (415) 812-4763 FAX: (415) 812-4777
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94304
URL: ftp://parcftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/misc/janssen.html