Folks,
I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial
development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way
cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a
technical prospective?
I'm writing poker room software (client and server) and will be using
LW or ACL with the Torque Game Engine (upcoming 2D version). I don't
have a big problem with paying royalties to Franz as my software will
be several thousand bucks per copy and Franz asks for less than 10%.
My poker server will be very long-running and I'd like the capability
to auto-update the poker clients. I also noticed that Franz offers
unlimited tech support (Enterprise version only?) whereas I only get a
fixed number of incidents with LW.
Thanks in advance, Joel
--
http://wagerlabs.com/tech
On 2 Feb 2005 11:18:16 -0800, <······@gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial
> development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way
> cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a
> technical prospective?
>
> I'm writing poker room software (client and server) and will be using
> LW or ACL with the Torque Game Engine (upcoming 2D version). I don't
> have a big problem with paying royalties to Franz as my software will
> be several thousand bucks per copy and Franz asks for less than 10%.
>
> My poker server will be very long-running and I'd like the capability
> to auto-update the poker clients. I also noticed that Franz offers
> unlimited tech support (Enterprise version only?) whereas I only get a
> fixed number of incidents with LW.
> Thanks in advance, Joel
>
> --
> http://wagerlabs.com/tech
>
In a nutshell ACL comes with a large collection of Internett developement
libraries and LispWork dosn't. This might be of relevance to you.
Lispworks offers CAPI wich is portable. Common Windows (ALC) isn't
(last I checked). Both offer CLIM but ACL charges extra.
The best way to see the diference is to compare the features
offered by both.
http://www.franz.com/products/
http://www.lispworks.com/products/lispworks.html
The compilers both are mature, complete and give good code.
I belive ACL has a edge in optimation.
ACL is market leader and has more developers so expect more
libraries and faster updates.
Personally I go with LW as price matters and I like CAPI.
If in doubt download both trial versions and play with them.
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 21:44:43 +0100, John Thingstad
<··············@chello.no> wrote:
> Lispworks offers CAPI wich is portable. Common Windows (ALC) isn't
>
That was supposed to be: Common Graphics (ACL) isn't portable.
(Last I checked.)
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
······@gmail.com wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial
> development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way
> cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a
> technical prospective?
I vastly prefer the AllegroCL IDE. That was in 6.2. V7 looks even better.
Lispworks is very popular with a lot of good developers, tho. They are
just wrong. :)
kenny
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
> I vastly prefer the AllegroCL IDE. That was in 6.2. V7 looks even better.
>
> Lispworks is very popular with a lot of good developers, tho. They are
> just wrong. :)
Hey Kenny,
Are you just being an objective reporter or is Franz (aka the White
House) paying for your opinion? Full disclosure seems
necessary these days. :)
Wade
Wade Humeniuk wrote:
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
>>
>> I vastly prefer the AllegroCL IDE. That was in 6.2. V7 looks even better.
>>
>> Lispworks is very popular with a lot of good developers, tho. They are
>> just wrong. :)
>
>
> Hey Kenny,
>
> Are you just being an objective reporter or is Franz (aka the White
> House) paying for your opinion? Full disclosure seems
> necessary these days. :)
From http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shill
"Shill. n. One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic
gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle."
So your question is, am I a shill? And you ask because, like others, I
believe AllegroCL to have the best IDE?
Have you used both AllegroCL and Lispworks? How much? Were you not
impressed with AllegroCL's IDE and other qualities? Where do you see
them falling short of Lispworks?
Also, do you like programming? Do you appreciate things which make your
life easier? Do you like turning others on to those useful things?
:)
kenny
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
Kenny Tilton wrote:
> From http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shill
>
> "Shill. n. One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic
> gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle."
>
> So your question is, am I a shill? And you ask because, like others, I
> believe AllegroCL to have the best IDE?
>
No I do not think you are a shill, because I do not think ACL is a
swindle. :)
> Have you used both AllegroCL and Lispworks? How much? Were you not
> impressed with AllegroCL's IDE and other qualities? Where do you see
> them falling short of Lispworks?
>
I assume you mean the ACL IDE on Windows, as opposed
to a Unix. Yes I used it. Not much. LW, lots and lots.
ACL's is prettier, its GUI tool is more functional, but...
I like things that have rough edges, like, music with errors,
people with faults, imperfect weather, .....
ACL's IDE tool got a little in my way, especially when
it came to doing GUI's as it treats me a little like
a simpleton, too much automation.
> Also, do you like programming? Do you appreciate things which make your
> life easier? Do you like turning others on to those useful things?
>
That is a blanket statement. No I do not like all things which make
life easier. Modern tech has contributed to making many
fat couch potatoes. Visual Basic enables many to "program" with
little understanding of computers. HTML lets many more create
web sites, though it has many shortcomings.
Let's just say I appreciate things that make life better, not easier.
Wade
Wade Humeniuk wrote:
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
>> From http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shill
>>
>> "Shill. n. One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic
>> gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle."
>>
>> So your question is, am I a shill? And you ask because, like others, I
>> believe AllegroCL to have the best IDE?
>>
>
> No I do not think you are a shill, because I do not think ACL is a
> swindle. :)
So my enthusiasm for the product is plausible. What then makes you
question my integrity? Go back to the specific features I have praised
and explain how that praise was false or excessive. This should be to a
degree sufficient to make you suspect the implausible prospect of
someone paying me to hang out on c.l.l. and hawk their wares.
Or is Xanalys... no, I do not want to sink to your level. :)
>
>> Have you used both AllegroCL and Lispworks? How much? Were you not
>> impressed with AllegroCL's IDE and other qualities? Where do you see
>> them falling short of Lispworks?
>>
>
> I assume you mean the ACL IDE on Windows, as opposed
> to a Unix. Yes I used it. Not much. LW, lots and lots.
> ACL's is prettier, its GUI tool is more functional, but...
> I like things that have rough edges, like, music with errors,
> people with faults, imperfect weather, .....
>
> ACL's IDE tool got a little in my way, especially when
> it came to doing GUI's as it treats me a little like
> a simpleton, too much automation.
Dude, that is not their IDE, that is their GUI builder. I do not use it,
I build my own GUIs.
Anyway, I believe you screwed up. The GUI builder would be for someone
with no plans for intense GUI development. If you are not a simpleton,
just code CG directly.
>
>> Also, do you like programming? Do you appreciate things which make
>> your life easier? Do you like turning others on to those useful things?
>>
>
> That is a blanket statement. No I do not like all things which make
> life easier. Modern tech has contributed to making many
> fat couch potatoes. Visual Basic enables many to "program" with
> little understanding of computers. HTML lets many more create
> web sites, though it has many shortcomings.
You think VB makes programming easier? have you ever used VB seriously?
Are you being paid by Microsoft to... oops. :) VB is like any 4GL:
deceptive ease of simple pet tricks not scaling when used in anger.
Getting back to your question about my integrity and that of Franz and
all their employees... why would you believe my answer? :) Anyway, here
it is:
Neither. :) My personal opinion is biased by greater use of AllegroCL
than Lispworks, which I try to emphasize whenever I praise ACL over LW.
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Why choose Franz ACL over LispWorks?
Date:
Message-ID: <RQzMd.50$rB6.16@edtnps91>
Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
> So my enthusiasm for the product is plausible. What then makes you
> question my integrity? Go back to the specific features I have praised
> and explain how that praise was false or excessive. This should be to a
> degree sufficient to make you suspect the implausible prospect of
> someone paying me to hang out on c.l.l. and hawk their wares.
>
Your original post sounded so much like George Bush (I'm right
you're not) that I could not resist. Then with the connection
to the White House buying journalists... :)
Wade
Up spake Kenny Tilton:
> > Are you just being an objective reporter or is Franz (aka the White
> > House) paying for your opinion? Full disclosure seems
> > necessary these days. :)
>
> So your question is, am I a shill?
I notice you didn't actually *answer* the question :-)
--
-trent
All programs are poems, it's just that not all programmers are poets.
-- Jonathan Guthrie
Trent Buck wrote:
> Up spake Kenny Tilton:
>
>>>Are you just being an objective reporter or is Franz (aka the White
>>>House) paying for your opinion? Full disclosure seems
>>>necessary these days. :)
>>
>>So your question is, am I a shill?
>
>
> I notice you didn't actually *answer* the question :-)
>
Drives ya crazy, doesn't it? :) I was just trying to sucker someone into
pointing out that I had not answered it. I guess you win. Have a seat.
Never let the meatheads set the debate. I chose to make the question
itself the object of inquiry. It was a bullsh*t question, insulting to
myself and Franz and most Franz employees. The question did not make
sense, and flew in the face of the very simple fact that no one has ever
doubted that Franz has a fine IDE, and that many besides myself consider
it the Cadillac of Lisps. I guess you missed some of the traffic, btw,
or you would have understood that. And seen the answer to the question:
neither.
But me and Wade are old c.l.l. buddies and he did his best to make up by
saying he simply confused me with Dubbya. Now I am really pissed off...
:)
kenny
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
Kenny, you are hijacking the thread ;-).
GP Lisper, I have done my bit of market research and I do have someone
funding my development, i.e. paying for the software license upfront. I
also released the old version of the product as open source back in
August (http://projects.sourceforge.net/openpoker).
That was product is written in Delphi and cannot be used in production,
it's architecture is crap and it's impossible to debug fully. I decided
to rewrite it in Lisp last year and do have a few people lined up to
buy it.
The old Delphi poker cost the client over 125K to develop /paid to me/
and I paid about 50K to some folks in Syberia. The project came to a
halt at 100K and I got to own in for pardoning the balance. That was
all in 2001 when the going was still good :-).
Of course none of this has to do with the technical or other merits of
ACL over LispWorks or vise versa.
Thanks, Joel
--
http://wagerlabs.com/tech
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Why choose Franz ACL over LispWorks?
Date:
Message-ID: <4nLMd.401$pN3.62@edtnps84>
Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
> But me and Wade are old c.l.l. buddies and he did his best to make up by
> saying he simply confused me with Dubbya. Now I am really pissed off...
>
Good. I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon - strike
me down with all of your hatred, and your journey to the Dark Side will
be complete!
Darth Wadious
I thought it would be worth to describe my experience so far...
I develop on a PowerBook G4 15" with the latest Mac OSX and I totally
love it. I would have ditched my PC long time ago if it were not for
delivering Windows executables. My girlfriend uses it now for email and
solitaire.
LispWorks is good for Mac development as it has not only CAPI but also
the Objective C bindings. This is a boon if you want to develop Cocoa
apps. CAPI is cross-platform and will use Cocoa widgets on the Mac or
the native widgets on Windows, etc. Using the Objective C bridge you
can do anything you want with Cocoa while working in the comfort of the
REPL or the IDE.
LispWorks also costs far less than ACL but... LW does not create shared
libraries on any platforms but Windows and this feature is very
important to me. ACL can create shared libraries on all platforms but
HP-UX 11. This means you can package your Lisp logic and call it from
any C or C++ app. SDL and Windows have their own main and so does the
Torque Game Engine. The platform-specific main does initializations and
event handling. For example, Quartz and Cocoa need to be initialized on
the Mac.
LispWorks own the main and does not create shared libraries so you are
stuck with loading C/C++ code into LispWorks and not vise versa. So you
cannot just use SDL with LispWorks on the Mac unless you take a big gun
and shoot yourself. Well, not literally but you do need to jump through
loops and hoops to separate the Quartz/Cocoa initialization code into
some shared library that you can load, etc. It's a huge pain in the
rear! Other than that it boils down to tech support for me.
I found LW tech support slow to respond during my eval period. I needed
to go beyond CAPI to get a handle on the raw image bytes and use them
to load OpenGL textures. Apparently LW uses NSImage on OSX and
something else on Windows. I needed to quickly combine image and mask
stored in separate files to set the alpha channel.
This basically amounted to a memcopy with a twist in that I needed to
expand a 3 byte per pixel array into a 4 byte per pixel array and then
populate every fourth byte from yet another array. This was slow in
Lisp so I asked LW for help and they basically told me to use the CAPI
API. They told me this in a couple of days, I think, maybe more.
I had to dig into it myself, figure out how to get to the raw bytes of
the NSImage bitmap, etc. I did not look forward to doing this on
Windows so I asked LW a very pointed question regarding Windows. I got
an answer 2-3 days later but it was not very detailed, although it did
point me in the right direction. The second email did, as it took two
to get where I wanted. Last but not least LW charges for support and
sells incident packs. A 10 pack is something like $1000 for me.
Franz does not charge per incident and every time I asked a question
they came back with a very detailed answer within a few hours. I was
able to get a few detailed answers from them in a single day. Finally,
when I asked a broad sort of an answer they called me (I'm in Spain),
had an hour-long chat with me on the phone and explained to me
everything in detail.
I tend to get stuck in very non-obvious places so support is very
important to me. I give two thumbs up to Franz for their support and
actually think it's worth all the extra money!
Joel Reymont wrote:
>
> I tend to get stuck in very non-obvious places so support is very
> important to me. I give two thumbs up to Franz for their support and
> actually think it's worth all the extra money!
>
Yes the human touch is priceless.
Wade
Joel Reymont wrote:
>
> LispWorks also costs far less than ACL but... LW does not create shared
> libraries on any platforms but Windows and this feature is very
> important to me. ACL can create shared libraries on all platforms but
> HP-UX 11. This means you can package your Lisp logic and call it from
> any C or C++ app. SDL and Windows have their own main and so does the
> Torque Game Engine. The platform-specific main does initializations and
> event handling. For example, Quartz and Cocoa need to be initialized on
> the Mac.
>
You sound like you want an embedded CL to handle game logic, called
from the main game engine. You already mentioned ECL in a previous post.
I also assume one could also use clisp as an embeddable CL (you do get
the source code). Maybe someone has already done something like this
with the torque game engine? Personally this is the way I would go.
In the distant past I embedded Scheme->C into a C++ app, worked
just fine. I assume the same for ECL or Clisp.
Wade
I looked at ECL, CLisp and ThinLisp. But, again, I think money is not
my biggest worry. I like commercial support and don't want to be
penny-wise and pound-foolish. The easiest thing /if I did not like CL
so much/ would have been to build in the Chicken interpreter or use it
to create shared libraries. Absolutely free of charge.
I don't know if saving myself a few thousand dollars here is the right
thing to do. I do know that I would rather focus on developing great
software than on figuring out how the garbage collector works and why
it's not doing what I think it should. The time for that will come, I'm
sure it will. But I would rather do that at my own leisure and not when
my clients are complaining. Disclaimer: I'm not saying GCs in free Lisp
or Scheme products are flawed.
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Why choose Franz ACL over LispWorks?
Date:
Message-ID: <RG9Nd.1215$gA4.265@edtnps89>
Joel Reymont wrote:
>
> I don't know if saving myself a few thousand dollars here is the right
> thing to do. I do know that I would rather focus on developing great
> software than on figuring out how the garbage collector works and why
> it's not doing what I think it should. The time for that will come, I'm
> sure it will. But I would rather do that at my own leisure and not when
> my clients are complaining. Disclaimer: I'm not saying GCs in free Lisp
> or Scheme products are flawed.
>
Actually I do not view it as saving money. Say you picked ECL. There
are a couple of people who support develop and probably support it. Its
their baby, they know it inside and out. Perhaps they provide
AWESOME support, I do not know for sure, but it tends to be that
people who own something and are directly responsible care a lot.
An analogy is that I take my car for repairs to a Ma and Pa garage.
Three people work there in total. AWESOME service, personal touch.
I had no end of trouble with big garages were some mechanic who
is not as caring does not fix the problem.
Perhaps with something like ECL you can even PARTNER with them. They
integrate it with Tourque and you give them a cut of the sales.
Then you have someone directly interested in its success.
There are more solutions than just buying a product and hoping for
the best.
Wade
On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 20:54:10 GMT, Wade Humeniuk
<··················@telus.net> wrote:
> Actually you can probably get all the help you need if you
> let some of us have the cheat-codes for the poker game!
>
> :)
>
> Wade
Sounds cheaper than paying 10% royalties...
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
Releasing cheat codes? Ceaper indeed! Except there are no cheat codes.
in online poker. Really, there aren't.
People cheat by running screen-scraping software that lets them
calculate the probability of a given hand. Take a look here:
http://www.winholdem.net/antidetect.html
I can't decide and it freaks me out. My opinion is that ACL is better
than LispWorks. ECL seems to be a good option free option but I also
have a March 10 delivery deadline. What if I have problems? I'm sort of
swinging back and forth like a pendulum and this or that bit of
information periodically causes it to start swinging. How do I make the
pendulum come to a stable rest?
One possibility is to start low and slow and move up as needed. I
already know enough about Chicken, LispWorks and ACL to form an
opinion. I don't know about ECL as I have not used it. Maybe I should
use it for a month and see what kind of trouble I run into and the kind
of support I get.
If things don't work out to my liking I can always call in the big guns
and buy ACL. What do you think?
Regarding ECL... Things like that always worry me
http://common-lisp.net/pipermail/slime-devel/2004-December/002821.html
They make me think that I'll spend more time fixing things in my tools
then coding my application.
On CLISP... According to my reading of this document
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/clisp/clisp/COPYRIGHT?view=markup
the CLISP license is too restrictive to use it to build a commercial
app, especially one that loads shared libraries built with CLISP or
might need a built-in REPL. Oh, well...
On 5 Feb 2005 14:48:00 -0800, Joel Reymont <······@gmail.com> wrote:
> Releasing cheat codes? Ceaper indeed! Except there are no cheat codes.
> in online poker. Really, there aren't.
>
> People cheat by running screen-scraping software that lets them
> calculate the probability of a given hand. Take a look here:
> http://www.winholdem.net/antidetect.html
>
> I can't decide and it freaks me out. My opinion is that ACL is better
> than LispWorks. ECL seems to be a good option free option but I also
> have a March 10 delivery deadline. What if I have problems? I'm sort of
> swinging back and forth like a pendulum and this or that bit of
> information periodically causes it to start swinging. How do I make the
> pendulum come to a stable rest?
>
> One possibility is to start low and slow and move up as needed. I
> already know enough about Chicken, LispWorks and ACL to form an
> opinion. I don't know about ECL as I have not used it. Maybe I should
> use it for a month and see what kind of trouble I run into and the kind
> of support I get.
>
> If things don't work out to my liking I can always call in the big guns
> and buy ACL. What do you think?
>
Seems to me that you have taken your own time choosing.
It's time to make a commitment and stick with it.
You seem to have gathered all the facts you need.
I wish you good luck!
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
Joel Reymont wrote:
>
> I can't decide and it freaks me out. My opinion is that ACL is better
> than LispWorks. ECL seems to be a good option free option but I also
> have a March 10 delivery deadline. What if I have problems? I'm sort of
> swinging back and forth like a pendulum and this or that bit of
> information periodically causes it to start swinging. How do I make the
> pendulum come to a stable rest?
>
March 10?! You mean 2005 right? If something was due Mar 10
I would hope that it is nearly ready for user testing. Deadlines
can be very good at paralyzing that pendulum.
For ECL I would suggest trying its mailing list. Express some
concerns, ask what tools they use to develop with (It does not
seem to be slime, but there other Lisp interaction packages.)
Wade
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Why choose Franz ACL over LispWorks?
Date:
Message-ID: <1e6Nd.817$gA4.430@edtnps89>
Wade Humeniuk wrote:
>
> You sound like you want an embedded CL to handle game logic, called
> from the main game engine. You already mentioned ECL in a previous post.
> I also assume one could also use clisp as an embeddable CL (you do get
> the source code). Maybe someone has already done something like this
> with the torque game engine? Personally this is the way I would go.
> In the distant past I embedded Scheme->C into a C++ app, worked
> just fine. I assume the same for ECL or Clisp.
>
I forgot about ThinLisp as a candidate
http://sourceforge.net/projects/thinlisp/
Wade
"Joel Reymont" <······@gmail.com> writes:
> I develop on a PowerBook G4 15" with the latest Mac OSX and I
> totally love it. I would have ditched my PC long time ago if it were
> not for delivering Windows executables. My girlfriend uses it now
> for email and solitaire.
^^^^^^^^^
I know you're having a blast and all but maybe you should stop coding
for a while and take your girlfriend out to dinner. ;-)
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
You got me with solitaire, Peter :D. And you are right on both counts.
I am having a blast and it does not leave me with a lot of free time
these days. But we live in Tenerife, Canary Islands and the pay is not
bad. Some sacrifices come with the territory. Still it helps keeps
things in prospective and remember who you are doing things for.
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Why choose Franz ACL over LispWorks?
Date:
Message-ID: <XXrMd.1207$Ox3.835@clgrps13>
······@gmail.com wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial
> development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way
> cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a
> technical prospective?
>
What did Franz say about Technical Support. From my brief
conversations of the past they seemed willing in some
cases to provide hands on development support if you are
having problems. That is, to assign a person to directly
help you work through any problems. Is this still the
case?
Wade
Franz did not say they would write the code for me but I did not ask
them to either. I was told that support is unlimited and that the
people providing support are the same people who have been with the
company for 10-15 years.
I was told by others that their support is quite responsive and they
might even make the ACL source code available if you sign a special
agreement.
I suspect that I'll need quite a bit of support to start with. A
10-incident LispWorks support pack would run me $1,800+ (I'm in Europe)
every year and assuming a couple of incidents per month I'd have
purchase two.
I'm also concerned that LispWorks seems to be just Dave and Martin.
They both answer sales and support emails. I assume that they need to
spend time developing LispWorks as well as support users of prior
versions of LispWorks. This extra support is probably quite a burden to
them now that they are free from the mothership.
All and all I'm thinking of betting on Franz and striking a financing
deal with them. Once my product is finished I should be able to pay for
ACL from the proceeds of just one sale.
Thanks, Joel
--
http://wagerlabs.com/tech
······@gmail.com wrote:
> Franz did not say they would write the code for me but I did not ask
> them to either. I was told that support is unlimited and that the
> people providing support are the same people who have been with the
> company for 10-15 years.
>
> I was told by others that their support is quite responsive and they
> might even make the ACL source code available if you sign a special
> agreement.
Support is, yes, quite responsive. One problem is that they refuse to do
anything until you have a reproducible error. Carving that out of a
complex application can take hours, when in some cases a knowledgable
support person could look at the symptoms and work backwards to the
likely problem. They did the latter exactly once (after I went down on
my knees) and sure enough they quickly confirmed a bug in AllegroStore
(which rocks).
Asking for a reproducible is quite reasonable, but they should not
refuse out of hand to try thinking backwards from symptoms when it will
take a user hours (days in a couple of hard cases, ISTR) to create a
reproducible. If my users tell me something went kaflooey but cannot
reproduce it, I still look at the relevant code to see if something
jumps out at me.
But that is just one nit. On the whole, tech support is awesome. Same or
next-day patches on any flaw we found in their stuff.
>
> I suspect that I'll need quite a bit of support to start with.
You mean as in "help learning Lisp"? I have no idea how far they go with
that (if that is even what you mean); we tried not to use support until
we had a prima facie case that their stuff was acting up.
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> ······@gmail.com wrote:
[...]
>> I suspect that I'll need quite a bit of support to start with.
>
> You mean as in "help learning Lisp"? I have no idea how far they go
> with that (if that is even what you mean); we tried not to use support
Franz also offers training:
http://www.franz.com/services/classes/
Paolo
--
Lisp Propulsion Laboratory log - http://www.paoloamoroso.it/log
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (see also http://clrfi.alu.org):
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
From: Bulent Murtezaoglu
Subject: Re: Why choose Franz ACL over LispWorks?
Date:
Message-ID: <87k6pph0i5.fsf@p4.internal>
[...]
jlr> I was told by others that their support is quite responsive
jlr> and they might even make the ACL source code available if you
jlr> sign a special agreement.
This probably could be negotiated with other vendors too.
jlr> I suspect that I'll need quite a bit of support to start
jlr> with. A 10-incident LispWorks support pack would run me
jlr> $1,800+ (I'm in Europe) every year and assuming a couple of
jlr> incidents per month I'd have purchase two. [...]
I don't know what the other number is so I can't compare, but why do
you think you'd need that kind of intense support from the vendor? (I
apologize if I missed a posting where you told us this.)
cheers,
BM
I'm fairly new to CL and I'm developing poker room software. This
consists of a client written in CL and using OpenGL, probably on top of
the Torque Game Engine or the upcoming Torque 2D
(http://www.garagegames.com).
I started with LispWorks and its CAPI cross-platform GUI and had to ask
a fair number of questions on the LW user list. I needed to optimize
array access, directly access the underlying image formats, etc. to
load images into OpenGL textures. The issues were not with OpenGL but
with CL optimizations.
I also have the server which by nature is a long-running one. I would
like to make the server as high-performance as possible and see if I
can support 5,000+ users at the same time. This tells me that I'll have
to do a lot of GC tuning and optimizations on the server side. I would
also like to load code updates into a running client.
All of the above implies lots of issues small and big and lots of
support queries.
P.S. I chose TGE for its network layer, GUI controls that draw over
either OpenGL or DirectX and the $100 price.
On 3 Feb 2005 11:22:49 -0800, <······@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> All and all I'm thinking of betting on Franz and striking a financing
> deal with them. Once my product is finished I should be able to pay for
> ACL from the proceeds of just one sale.
Ah, sounds like no market research whatsoever, and you expect others
to finance your way up. Better go with the demos and work on your
market, the lisp choice is immaterial without a set of buyers.
Any serious buyer believing that he would receive great benefit from a
project will make progress payments.
--
Everyman has three hearts;
one to show the world, one to show friends, and one only he knows.
On 2 Feb 2005 11:18:16 -0800, <······@gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial
> development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way
> cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a
> technical prospective?
>
> I'm writing poker room software (client and server) and will be using
> LW or ACL with the Torque Game Engine (upcoming 2D version). I don't
> have a big problem with paying royalties to Franz as my software will
> be several thousand bucks per copy and Franz asks for less than 10%.
>
> My poker server will be very long-running and I'd like the capability
> to auto-update the poker clients. I also noticed that Franz offers
> unlimited tech support (Enterprise version only?) whereas I only get a
> fixed number of incidents with LW.
> Thanks in advance, Joel
>
> --
> http://wagerlabs.com/tech
>
Maybe I'm a bit dim but I don't see the business model.
You are selling a client server solution.
Surly you are not selling client's for 2000$?
Do they bet with real money?
Who are you selling to? The casino's in Vegas?
Is it even legal to offer such a service over the net?
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
/Sorry if this is a duplicate post but google gave me an error on the
previous one/
John, I sell the server for 5,000 euro and the client is free.
Poker craze is sweeping over America and a lot of people want to run a
poker room of their own, just like http://www.pokeroom.com or
http://www.partypoker.com. I have a dim view of the prospects of
striking gold by running a poker room but this should not prevent me
from selling shovels to the prospectors. And shovels is what I sell, I
do not get involved in the digging.
Anyone who wants can buy or lease a gambling license in Canada, Costa
Rica or Panama and open shop. A license will run you from 20K per year.
Of course it's illegal to run a gambling operation if you are a US
citizen.
I have a number of people lined up to buy my software once it's done
(within a couple of months). I hope to find a small niche and dominate
it. Ease of customization and pluggable GUI "widgets" such as a video
feed might be it. Lisp lets me customize the software anyway I want for
my customers and do so in a short period of time. Other than this,
poker room software usually sells for 30-500K plus sizeable percentage
of revenue.
Thanks, Joel
--
http://wagerlabs.com/tech
Joel,
In a different thread I'd appreciate it if you could expand on
choosing Lisp as a language for this app, any convincing you had to
give to your backers, etc.
Thanks
······@gmail.com wrote:
>John, I sell the server for 5,000 euro or so. The client is free.
>
>The Texas Hold'em craze is sweeping over America and you would be
>surprised at the number of people who want to run a poker room of their
>own. Pretty much anyone can buy or lease a gambling license in Canada,
>Costa Rica, Panama, etc. and get into the business.
>
>I have a dim view of striking gold by running a poker room but this
>should not prevent me from selling shovels to the prospectors. I have a
>number of people from all over the world lined up to buy. I do not run
>the operation itself, I just sell the software.
>
> Joel
<······@gmail.com> wrote in message
····························@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Folks,
>
> I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial
> development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way
> cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a
> technical prospective?
I've used both, and they both have pluses and minuses. Since I've not used
ACL since 2000, I can't comment on the current state of their compiler, but
at that time, most code was more efficient out of the ACL compiler than LW.
LW gives you something more akin to the lisp machine development
environment, however. (ACL's interface was through an emacs subprocess,
though they did have some common windows tools for debugging and performance
metering).
These days, I've been using LispWorks (and a combination of LW and MCL at
home). I can distribute applications without additional fees, the upfront
cost is substantially less, and that makes it a lot easier to convince
management it's OK to have this non-C++ language around.
Other differences will really depend on your usage, such as FFI, CLIM
support, windowing, MOP support, etc. and again, I've not used ACL since
2000. LW does what I need it to do, it's relatively cheap, and the support
folks have been friendly and helpful. There's a fully functional
time-limited demo (personal edition) so you can try it out.
Last I saw such things compared, Lucid's lisp (now Liquid Common Lisp, also
from LispWorks), was the best compiler on Sun machines.