Hi all -
I have a fairly large Lisp program I would like to translate to Scheme -
want to run the old (Franz/Common) Lisp under the mature MacGambit system
on the Mac. I've used XLisp for the Mac, and it is well done, but lacks a
compiler - not yet committed enough to buy Mac Common Lisp.
I'm unfamiliar with Scheme - it has been described as a "dialect of Lisp".
Assuming that that is true enough for the moment, how easy/difficult is it
to translate? Is there a translation program available (written in
Scheme?) that can take me most of the way?
...any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Steve
--
S&C&K&W Johnson
········@ici.net
S&C&K&WJ wrote:
>
> Hi all -
>
> I have a fairly large Lisp program I would like to translate to Scheme -
> want to run the old (Franz/Common) Lisp under the mature MacGambit system
> on the Mac. I've used XLisp for the Mac, and it is well done, but lacks a
> compiler - not yet committed enough to buy Mac Common Lisp.
>
> I'm unfamiliar with Scheme - it has been described as a "dialect of Lisp".
> Assuming that that is true enough for the moment, how easy/difficult is it
> to translate? Is there a translation program available (written in
> Scheme?) that can take me most of the way?
>
> ...any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
> Thanks,
> Steve
>
> --
> S&C&K&W Johnson
> ········@ici.net
It could be VERY difficult:
1. Does the application use packages (i.e. defining which symbols with
the same name are visible in source)? Scheme does not have this.
2. Does the application ever use the same name for a variable and a
function? Common Lisp keeps these separate, Scheme does not. (I don't
know of any easy way to scan the source to check this.)
3. Common Lisp defines a lot of control operators that would have to be
rewritten in Scheme.
4. Does the application use the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS)?
Scheme does not directly define anything like this.
5. Common Lisp defines a huge library of functions that are not likely
to be in a Scheme implementation.
6. Does the applciation use keyword arguments. These are not directly
supported in Scheme (I think.)
N.B.: This is not meant to sound like Common Lisp is better, just
different. There are some features of Scheme that are not present in
Common Lisp, and elegence/simplicity is a feature in itself!
You are probably better off obtaining a cheap Common Lisp implementation
on your chosen platform (or even changing platforms). See the Lisp FAQ
at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/faqs/lang/lisp/top.html for
clues on finding these. By the way, I believe that MCL is supposed to
be pretty reasonably priced for non-commercial applications.
········@ici.net (S&C&K&WJ) writes:
>
> Hi all -
>
> I have a fairly large Lisp program I would like to translate to Scheme -
> want to run the old (Franz/Common) Lisp under the mature MacGambit system
> on the Mac. I've used XLisp for the Mac, and it is well done, but lacks a
> compiler - not yet committed enough to buy Mac Common Lisp.
>
> I'm unfamiliar with Scheme - it has been described as a "dialect of Lisp".
> Assuming that that is true enough for the moment, how easy/difficult is it
> to translate? Is there a translation program available (written in
> Scheme?) that can take me most of the way?
>
> ...any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
I cannot speak for Franz code, but any serious Common Lisp piece of
code would require massive additions to any Scheme
interpreter/compiler.
Cheers
--
Marco Antoniotti - Resistente Umano
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...it is simplicity that is difficult to make.
...e` la semplicita` che e` difficile a farsi.
Bertholdt Brecht