Hi, I was wondering, what, in your opinions, is the best (free) lisp
implementation.
I'm not exactly looking for great GUI support, but just good functionality
with support for most (if not all) of the standard functions and macros.
Ben Good wrote:
> Hi, I was wondering, what, in your opinions, is the best (free) lisp
> implementation.
> I'm not exactly looking for great GUI support, but just good functionality
> with support for most (if not all) of the standard functions and macros.
The question begs another one: "Best for what?". All of the major Lisps
have different performance characteristics. The best one for math may have
abysmally slow CLOS dispatch, while ones that are wonderful at
multi-threading might have cruddy memory management performance. All of
them differ in the number of development tools they offer. One might have
a great debugger, while another one has a fantastic inspector. There is
probably not a "best" unless you can describe more precisely what you need
it for. It all depends on what you want to do.
That being said, it's hard to beat CMUCL in performance. Of course, it
doesn't run on Windows, so for Windows, it's probably Corman, unless you
can live with Franz's or Xanalys' restrictions (but they have lovely
development environments to make up for it). And, of course, there's
always CLisp, which runs everywhere, and is hard to beat for simple,
non-GUI kinds of work.
In the end, my advice would be to write your code complying with the Common
Lisp standard, as far as possible. This will allow you to "write once, run
anywhere" :-). And, you can pick whichever implementation gives you the
best of what you need.
faa
Hello!
In article <···················@news.webusenet.com>,
Ben Good <········@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Hi, I was wondering, what, in your opinions, is the best (free) lisp
>implementation.
>I'm not exactly looking for great GUI support, but just good functionality
>with support for most (if not all) of the standard functions and macros.
Depends on what you want in other aspects. Have a look at clisp, sbcl,
and cmucl.
Kind regards,
Hannah.
"Ben Good" <········@hotmail.com> wrote in
························@news.webusenet.com:
> Hi, I was wondering, what, in your opinions, is the best (free) lisp
> implementation.
> I'm not exactly looking for great GUI support, but just good
> functionality with support for most (if not all) of the standard
> functions and macros.
For Windows or *nix systems?
In my experience, Corman Lisp offers an excellent implementation on Windows
systems, and its license is the least restrictive. You can find Corman Lisp
at http://www.corman.net and there is a mailing list called cormanlisp on
Yahoo Groups. The documentation leaves something to be desired, but the
inclusion of the source makes up for it. Also, it is easy to speak with the
people who *write* Corman Lisp, which makes for excellent support. Corman
supports most of the ANSI Common Lisp specification, and becomes more
compliant almost daily.
As for *nix systems, I like clisp alot, but cmucl has a HUGE following,
which makes it easier to get help with. Both are free, to the best of my
knowledge.
Hope this helps,
Paul D. Lathrop
In article <···················@news.webusenet.com>,
"Ben Good" <········@hotmail.com> writes:
> Hi, I was wondering, what, in your opinions, is the best (free) lisp
> implementation.
depends. what system do you want it to run on (cpu and OS)? what are
the constraints? what do you want to use it for? what do you mean
br "free"? what kind of lisp?
if you are running windows you have the choice between clisp and the
free (gratuit) trial versions of the commercial implementations. some
of the latter have reduced functionality but should be ok if all you
need it for is learn common lisp. if you want it for writing
commercial programs you have to get a commercial license. afaik there
is no GUI support for clisp under windows (though you probably could
interface to ine using ffi). under unix you also have cmucl (sparc
solaris, linux 386, alpha for older versions(?)), sbcl (x86, power pc,
alpha, at least under linux and freebsd) and some commercial
versions. for apple you have (open)mcl. clisp seems to excel when
available memory is restricted.
> I'm not exactly looking for great GUI support, but just good functionality
> with support for most (if not all) of the standard functions and macros.
>
>
--
don't use malice as an explanation when stupidity suffices
Greetings!
··@heaven.nirvananet (Hartmann Schaffer) writes:
> In article <···················@news.webusenet.com>,
> if you are running windows you have the choice between clisp and the
> free (gratuit) trial versions of the commercial implementations. some
Just a mention that you also have gcl as a choice here. gcl (in cvs)
is currently known to build on win x86, Linux x86, m68k, arm, sparc,
ppc, s390, and mips(el), and solaris/sparc. The disadvantage, of
course, is that gcl is still mostly a cltl1 implementation. Current
cvs has preliminary ansi support via the configure option
--enable-ansi.
Take care,
>
> > I'm not exactly looking for great GUI support, but just good functionality
> > with support for most (if not all) of the standard functions and macros.
> >
> >
>
> --
>
> don't use malice as an explanation when stupidity suffices
--
Camm Maguire ····@enhanced.com
==========================================================================
"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." -- Baha'u'llah
··@heaven.nirvananet (Hartmann Schaffer) writes:
> sbcl (x86, power pc, alpha, at least under linux and freebsd)
Also on SPARC (Solaris 2.x and Linux), and the Alpha port runs on
Tru64 (but there are no current binaries - ask sbcl-devel mailing list
for binaries unless you want to crosscompile it yourself). Note that
the PPC port is for PPC Linux, not any flavour of Macos. (This is an
FAQ: "No, it doesn't run on OSX. Yes, it could be made to. No, I
have no current plans to do this")
-dan
--
http://ww.telent.net/cliki/ - Link farm for free CL-on-Unix resources
Thanks for everyone's input! Just to let you know, I am working on an x86
Win98 machine. Like I said, I'm not too picky about speed, etc., just as
long as it works reasonably. And finally, by free I meant not costing me
any money.
If you aren't picky about speed then Clisp is really your only choice for a
"free" (non-gratis commercial) lisp. And Clisp isn't even that slow either.
It's certainly comparable to perl and java.
-ted
"Ben Good" <········@hotmail.com> wrote in message
·······················@news.webusenet.com...
> Thanks for everyone's input! Just to let you know, I am working on an x86
> Win98 machine. Like I said, I'm not too picky about speed, etc., just as
> long as it works reasonably. And finally, by free I meant not costing me
> any money.
>
>
"ted sandler" <··········@rcn.com> wrote in message news:<············@bob.news.rcn.net>...
> ... And Clisp isn't even that slow either.
> It's certainly comparable to perl and java.
As far as I know, clisp is a byte-code compiler. So it's unfair
to compare it with compilers, such a C++. On other hand, CMUCL is
real custom-made (not lisp-to-C) native multi-platform (x86, alpha etc.)
compiler PLUS bytecode mashine (bytecode is slower but smaller compared with
compiled code).
Some time ago, NASA studied several languages, such a C/C++, Java, Scheme and
Lisp. Best C++ programs were faster than best Lisp, but worst Lisp proved better
than worst C. Lisp also showed less dispersion of perfomance. Java was ... say,
third.
On 9 Jul 2002 01:29:19 -0700, ······@ihed.ras.ru (Anton N. Mescheryakov)
wrote:
> Some time ago, NASA studied several languages, such a C/C++, Java, Scheme and
> Lisp. Best C++ programs were faster than best Lisp, but worst Lisp proved better
> than worst C. Lisp also showed less dispersion of perfomance. Java was ... say,
> third.
Do you have any references to this study?
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://www.paoloamoroso.it/ency/README
> * In message <····························@4ax.com>
> * On the subject of "Re: Best Lisp Implementation"
> * Sent on Wed, 10 Jul 2002 17:27:54 +0200
> * Honorable Paolo Amoroso <·······@mclink.it> writes:
>
> On 9 Jul 2002 01:29:19 -0700, ······@ihed.ras.ru (Anton N. Mescheryakov)
> wrote:
>
> > Some time ago, NASA studied several languages, such a C/C++, Java,
> > Scheme and Lisp. Best C++ programs were faster than best Lisp, but
> > worst Lisp proved better than worst C. Lisp also showed less
> > dispersion of perfomance. Java was ... say, third.
> Do you have any references to this study?
probably <http://www.flownet.com/gat/papers/lisp-java.pdf>
--
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running RedHat7.2 GNU/Linux
<http://www.camera.org> <http://www.iris.org.il> <http://www.memri.org/>
<http://www.mideasttruth.com/> <http://www.palestine-central.com/links.html>
The only intuitive interface is the nipple. The rest has to be learned.
Paolo Amoroso wrote:
>
> On 9 Jul 2002 01:29:19 -0700, ······@ihed.ras.ru (Anton N. Mescheryakov)
> wrote:
>
> > Some time ago, NASA studied several languages, such a C/C++, Java, Scheme and
> > Lisp. Best C++ programs were faster than best Lisp, but worst Lisp proved better
> > than worst C. Lisp also showed less dispersion of perfomance. Java was ... say,
> > third.
>
> Do you have any references to this study?
>
I assume he means:
"Lisp as an Alternative to Java"
Erann Gat
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91109
9 November 1999
Erann also describes some nice issues regarding development time in this study.
Best
AHz
On Sun, 7 Jul 2002 11:38:05 -0400, "Ben Good" <········@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>Hi, I was wondering, what, in your opinions, is the best (free) lisp
>implementation.
>I'm not exactly looking for great GUI support, but just good functionality
>with support for most (if not all) of the standard functions and macros.
>
Given that you are likely to use libraries written in other languages,
then you want a good ffi. If you have a good ffi you should have
halfway decent GUI support.