I am dismayed by the way that the compiler vendors and others hype
various 'new' features which have been around elsewhere for many years.
The C++ fraternity seem guilty of this. I would like to produce a list of
these features and would be grateful for any responses. For starters, we
have:
"Integrated Development Environment"
fans of early lisp machines could give dates and comparisons
with C++ environments in terms of features not the language.
"User Interface Builder"
ditto
"Dynamic HTML generation"
like the CL-HTTP servers have been doing for years
"Downloadable portable applets"
... like bits of Lisp code. Out-hyped by the Java machine.
"Detects memory leaks"
No comment, but Java will popularise GC.
"Incremental compilation"
This probably was worth hyping because it must have been hard
to do in a C environment.
Contributions by email please. I will organise and summarise.
----------
Peter Ward
···@langley.softwright.co.uk
In article <··········@cix.compulink.co.uk>, ········@cix.compulink.co.uk ("Peter Ward") says:
>
(Munch)
>----------
>Peter Ward
>···@langley.softwright.co.uk
All of which is well and true. But unless someone comes out with a lisp
that is as cheap and simple to use as Messysoft's Visual Basic, it will
continue to be unknown.
Now, say, if Franz were to take it's ACL for Windows, and do the following:
1) Add real OLE2 compatability
2) Add OCX compatability
3) Simplify use of Interface Builder
4) Add a decent treeshaker for sane distribution (under Win performance is
not as big a concern as it used to be. Lisp & VB are about the same speed)
(? Is there already one? I only have the web version)
5) Sell it in reasonalby priced tiers - $100 for Standard (no optimizer
maybe) - $500 for Professional (all features) - $1000 for a Team version
(source versioning, team messaging and schedualing)
Yes this sounds just like VB w/ a lisp engine. But that's why I have to
use VB at work rather than a lisp.
William A. Barnett-Lewis
Information Systems Manager
Wisconsin State Board of Elections
In article <··········@grandcanyon.binc.net>
······@mailbag.com "William Barnett-Lewis" writes:
> Now, say, if Franz were to take it's ACL for Windows, and do the following:
>
> 1) Add real OLE2 compatability
That would be very tasty.
> 2) Add OCX compatability
That would be unspeakably tasty! There're masses of useful tools being
(re-)packaged as OCX controls, ready to plug into a VB/VC++ app.
> 3) Simplify use of Interface Builder
Yes, and add OCX support. It's great having, let's say, socket support
in ACL/Win, but what if you've already got a fair amount of socket code
written in C++? Bundle into an OCX, if it isn't in that form already,
and then plug it into an app. Imagine adding ACL to the list of OCX-ready
development tools...VB, VC++, and...ACL! Wow.
> 4) Add a decent treeshaker for sane distribution (under Win performance is
> not as big a concern as it used to be. Lisp & VB are about the same speed)
> (? Is there already one? I only have the web version)
I've not tried the treeshaker yet. I don't yet have a Lisp app that can
really use it, esp as I'm still exploring the new landscape of the ACL
framework. That's not so easy when the docs are incomplete in the web
version, which is all I have. I don't recall seeing anything about the
treeshaker, but perhaps I should look again. I may have just missed it.
> 5) Sell it in reasonalby priced tiers - $100 for Standard (no optimizer
> maybe) - $500 for Professional (all features) - $1000 for a Team version
> (source versioning, team messaging and schedualing)
Aggressive marketting! Yes, I agree about this. Nobody will look twice
unless they're already a committed Lisp programmer. I'm a Lisp programmer,
but I'm far from committed. I'm not even committed to C++, but at least
I get paid to use it.
> Yes this sounds just like VB w/ a lisp engine. But that's why I have to
> use VB at work rather than a lisp.
That's also why I use VC++ at work - and at home, most of the time.
What I've read about the various Prolog systems available for Windows
(Win32, that is) sound more like what I'm looking for.
It's not the language which is different - both Lisp and Prolog will
be alien enough for most people - but the delivery overheads. I doubt
that ACL/Win's static linking (allegro.img is 6 MB, but how much of
that is left after the treeshaker has worked on it?) can compete with
a 200K DLL. The Lisp attitude seems to be to leave everything in until
it's time to deliver the code, while many other languages leave it all
out until a programmer decides they need it in.
With dynamic linking, the additional code is only "linked" in at runtime.
There are multi-megabyte VB apps, but most of the code can be found in
DLL and OCX files. Code that can be, and often _is_, shared with other
apps. It's not just bean counting, coz not everyone can afford masses
of RAM and/or disk space. Also, the code has to be distributed to the
user somehow. Even if the code can be delivered on CD-ROM, many people
will still count the MB of space required by the software.
Anyone who thinks that worrying about such things is short-sighted is
perhaps a little out of touch with mainstream computing. When I first
started reading comp.lang.lisp, a few years ago, there was a thread
with a subject asking why Lisp was not a more mainstream language.
Well, this is the reason. After nearly 4 years of observing this
newsgroup, I can say that most people here do not represent the world
of computers that most users see.
So, either don't worry about Lisp being obscure and forgotten - or wake
up and smell the coffee. Whether you like it or not, most software is
not written in Lisp, nor is it likely to ever be, if the current attitudes
of the Lisp community prevail. Change the language or find some way of
accepting the situation. Hmmm.
This is sounding a bit like, 'How We Learned to Love the MS Bomb'. ;-)
--
<URL:http://www.enrapture.com/cybes/> "You can never browse enough."