I want to try LISP but I have no idea which variant to choose from.
Could you help me decide? I also would like to know where to find some
good downloadable tutorials/manuals for your fav. version of lisp. I
preferably use Slackware Linux for my coding these days...
The big decision is between Common Lisp and Scheme.
I chose Common Lisp. If you choose Common Lisp, then all of the
implementations are about the same. This is the main advantage of
Common Lisp, that a large portion of the language is standardized. If
you care about fast number crunching, go with CMUCL or SBCL. A good
beginner's book is available online at www.gigamonkeys.com/book
In Scheme, only a few basic operators are standardized. You will still
get the variety of tools that you would get in Common Lisp, but which
set of tools you get will vary from one implementation to another. That
makes the choice of implementation more important in Scheme. Since I
haven't done much Scheme coding, I can't help you with that choice. A
good beginner's book for Scheme is SICP, available online at
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/ It covers only the portion of Scheme that
stays the same from one implementation to another, so you might read
the book first (while using any implementation) and make your permanent
choice of implementation later when you're ready for more advanced
tools.
Good luck with your Lisp studies.
Eric Lavigne wrote:
>The big decision is between Common Lisp and Scheme.
>
Oh. I didn't realize that it was common for people to regard Common
Lisp and Scheme as interchangeable. From everything I've read, Lisp is
Lisp, and Scheme is Scheme, even if they're similar. I did get into a
weird conflict with the Nebula2 development lead saying they're
different though. He felt I was 'spreading misinformation'. Over the
years, my experience has been that any time a techie talks about 'people
spreading misinformation', they've just got a really really narrow view
of the situation.
Anyways, what do I know about Schemes?
Bigloo Scheme is high performance and talks to C easily. It has an IDE
called the "Bee" which is pretty much a souped up Emacs mode. Many
things about Bigloo are nonstandard, to the point of making one wonder
if one's dealing with RSR5 or just something "sorta related." The
developer community is very small. Few 3rd party libraries and tools
exist, and fewer still actually build. The Bigloo project itself is
well run though. Manuel Serrano is very responsive about incorporating
bug reports and patches immediately. Bigloo can target C, Java JVM, and
C# CIL as backends. The C and JVM versions look pretty robust, I'm not
so sure about the CIL version as it's labeled 'experimental'. Some
professional Windows developers claim to have done significant
commercial work in Bigloo, that it's viable for that purpose. Yannis
Bres does a good job of keeping Bigloo running with the VC++ backend,
but his builds have yet to make it into the source pool proper. MinGW
builds are shaky but people are working on it and support is coming
along. MinGW itself is very hard to maintain, has nothing to do with
Bigloo. Cygwin is easy to maintain, Bigloo works great on it, but you
end up with the cygwin1.dll GPL licensing headache. In conclusion,
Bigloo is perfectly acceptable if you intend to write everything
yourself from scratch. I don't consider it to be as good a resume skill
as Common Lisp. There seems to be much more demand for Common Lisp than
Scheme in general, and among Schemes, Bigloo doesn't appear to be
demanded because it's "different."
The Eclipse Schemeway plugin author is big into Kawa Scheme, which
targets Java. If you're going to orbit around the Eclipse / Java
universe, that would probably be the best way to go. The Schemeway
plugin is far from an IDE though. It's mostly just an editor.
PLT Scheme is slower than Bigloo, but has a very very very nice IDE, and
absolutely first class instructional materials. There is no better
Scheme for *learning* Scheme.
Chicken Scheme is faster than PLT, not as fast as Bigoo, and has
interesting abilities to talk to C++. I'm not sure how complete they
are though. It supports SWIG. It doesn't have its own IDE.
This summary brought to you by that useless guy who "keeps switching all
the time" and consequently has reviewed, at least to some degree, most
of the stuff out there that's worth looking at.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
"The pioneer is the one with the arrows in his back."
- anonymous entrepreneur
Thanks guys, this helps a lot. I'm choosing CMUCL and I downloading the
interpreter (or is that the compiler? Whatever... :-)). I really
apreciate this.
From: Ulrich Hobelmann
Subject: Re: Wanna try LISP.. don't know which variant to choose from. Please help
Date:
Message-ID: <3glr3tFd3mcjU1@individual.net>
CPUFreak91 wrote:
> Thanks guys, this helps a lot. I'm choosing CMUCL and I downloading the
> interpreter (or is that the compiler? Whatever... :-)). I really
> apreciate this.
I think it contains a compiler, which is called Python, but much
faster than the language with the same name ;)
--
Don't let school interfere with your education. -- Mark Twain
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: Wanna try LISP.. don't know which variant to choose from. Please help
Date:
Message-ID: <xkjpe.66$mi7.93977@typhoon.nyu.edu>
Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> CPUFreak91 wrote:
>
>> Thanks guys, this helps a lot. I'm choosing CMUCL and I downloading the
>> interpreter (or is that the compiler? Whatever... :-)). I really
>> apreciate this.
>
>
> I think it contains a compiler, which is called Python, but much faster
> than the language with the same name ;)
Python is the CMUCL compiler. The name predates the language.
Python is not faster than the omonimous language. It is Common Lisp
compiled with the CMUCL/SBCL Python compiler that can be as fast as C/C++.
Cheers
--
Marco
Marco Antoniotti wrote:
>
> Python is the CMUCL compiler. The name predates the language.
> Python is not faster than the omonimous language. It is Common Lisp
> compiled with the CMUCL/SBCL Python compiler that can be as fast as
> C/C++.
What is the definition of "omonimous?" I find numerous Google uses of
this word, but no definition in any online English dictionary.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Marco Antoniotti wrote:
>
>>
>> Python is the CMUCL compiler. The name predates the language.
>> Python is not faster than the omonimous language. It is Common Lisp
>> compiled with the CMUCL/SBCL Python compiler that can be as fast as
>> C/C++.
>
>
> What is the definition of "omonimous?"
It's a synonym for "perfectly cromulent".
Paul
Paul F. Dietz wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
>> Marco Antoniotti wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Python is the CMUCL compiler. The name predates the language.
>>> Python is not faster than the omonimous language. It is Common Lisp
>>> compiled with the CMUCL/SBCL Python compiler that can be as fast as
>>> C/C++.
>>
>>
>>
>> What is the definition of "omonimous?"
>
>
> It's a synonym for "perfectly cromulent".
>
>
Not in Merriam-Webster, but defined in the urban dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cromulent
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Actually I have this paranoia about stuff that's not on my slackware
cd.. so I chose CLISP. I have-pay-by-the-minute-dial-up so anything
above 3 MB takes to long to download.
(format t "Thanks a lot for your help!")
"Paul F. Dietz" <·····@dls.net> writes:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> > Marco Antoniotti wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Python is the CMUCL compiler. The name predates the language.
> >> Python is not faster than the omonimous language. It is Common
> >> Lisp compiled with the CMUCL/SBCL Python compiler that can be as
> >> fast as C/C++.
> > What is the definition of "omonimous?"
>
> It's a synonym for "perfectly cromulent".
>
This thread has embiggened my vocabulary.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Marco Antoniotti wrote:
>
> > Python is not faster than the omonimous language. It is Common Lisp
> > compiled with the CMUCL/SBCL Python compiler that can be as fast as
> > C/C++.
>
> What is the definition of "omonimous?" I find numerous Google uses of
> this word, but no definition in any online English dictionary.
Seems likely it would be related to homo (same) + nomen (name).
Although in English, I would say "homonymous." Marco might have slipped
and used a simillar Romance form.
··············@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
>>Marco Antoniotti wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Python is not faster than the omonimous language. It is Common Lisp
>>>compiled with the CMUCL/SBCL Python compiler that can be as fast as
>>>C/C++.
>>
>>What is the definition of "omonimous?" I find numerous Google uses of
>>this word, but no definition in any online English dictionary.
>
>
> Seems likely it would be related to homo (same) + nomen (name).
>
> Although in English, I would say "homonymous." Marco might have slipped
> and used a simillar Romance form.
Yep. My spell checker was turned off and my Italian slipped in.
I hope I have not been too cromulent or whatever :)
Cheers
--
Marco
From: Dominique Boucher
Subject: Re: Wanna try LISP.. don't know which variant to choose from. Please help
Date:
Message-ID: <mzq28edq.fsf@sympatico.ca>
"Brandon J. Van Every" <·····················@mycompanyname.com> writes:
> The Eclipse Schemeway plugin author is big into Kawa Scheme, which
> targets Java.
Well, not that big, in fact. I use Kawa for commercial applications,
because I need speed and interoperability with Java. That's it. I
would switch to Gambit-C or Chicken anytime if I could.
> If you're going to orbit around the Eclipse / Java
> universe, that would probably be the best way to go.
Again, that depends on your needs. If you want to write
continuation-based web applications for J2EE environments, I would not
recommend Kawa at all. Use SISC instead. It is much more
R5RS-compliant.
> The Schemeway
> plugin is far from an IDE though. It's mostly just an editor.
It's much more than an editor:
- it can interact with an (inferior) Scheme process (or the Kawa
interpreter embedded in the plugin, which is nice for interacting
with the Eclipse platform itself);
- it offers lots of features normally found in Emacs (parenthesis
matching, automatic (correct) indentation, code completion, text
hovers, "jump to definition", mouse copy, etc., etc. The editor is
fully S-expression aware. Also, most feature are "workspace-aware"
(for example, you can browse all defined symbols in your workspace,
not only the ones in the current file).
- Kawa Scheme programs can be debugged (breakpoints are supported,
single-stepping too) (in the CVS version)
- There are many Kawa-specific extensions (in the CVS version).
Dominique
The author of SchemeScript, a SchemeWay plugin.
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> PLT Scheme is slower than Bigloo, but has a very very very nice IDE, and
> absolutely first class instructional materials. There is no better
> Scheme for *learning* Scheme.
I beg to differ. However, do you always know in PLT Scheme when
studying the manual what is standard and what's not?
The Bigloo manual works as follows:
description of function: and it is always clearly indicated whether it
is an Bigloo extension to the standard.
Schneewittchen
CPUFreak91 wrote:
>I want to try LISP but I have no idea which variant to choose from.
>Could you help me decide? I also would like to know where to find some
>good downloadable tutorials/manuals for your fav. version of lisp. I
>preferably use Slackware Linux for my coding these days...
>
>
>
CMUCL. If you don't like it, you can try something else. It's free,
open source, BSD (?) licensed, large, extensively supported. Your next
open source port of call after CMUCL would be SBCL, as it's a close
derivative. After that, well, then you start having to think. Spending
money, platforms, what you really really want, that sort of thing.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
T-shirt that landed someone a job: "I'm not an asshole,
I'm a Shaper!" http://www.teams.org.uk/shaper.htm
Where could I find some Tutorials and or HOTWOs and Manuals online
(preferably downloadable)?
Thanks guys. I'm going with CMUCL. I really apreciate it.
From: Pascal Costanza
Subject: Re: Wanna try LISP.. don't know which variant to choose from. Please help
Date:
Message-ID: <3gloj5FctlopU1@individual.net>
CPUFreak91 wrote:
> Where could I find some Tutorials and or HOTWOs and Manuals online
> (preferably downloadable)?
http://lisp.tech.coop is a good starting point.
Pascal
--
2nd European Lisp and Scheme Workshop
July 26 - Glasgow, Scotland - co-located with ECOOP 2005
http://lisp-ecoop05.bknr.net/
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: Wanna try LISP.. don't know which variant to choose from. Please help
Date:
Message-ID: <Lngpe.64$mi7.89001@typhoon.nyu.edu>
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> CPUFreak91 wrote:
>
>> I want to try LISP but I have no idea which variant to choose from.
>> Could you help me decide? I also would like to know where to find some
>> good downloadable tutorials/manuals for your fav. version of lisp. I
>> preferably use Slackware Linux for my coding these days...
>>
>>
>>
> CMUCL. If you don't like it, you can try something else. It's free,
> open source, BSD (?) licensed,
The core of CMUCL is "Public Domain". You cannot get any more "free"
than that. Other parts of the CMUCL distribution have different
licensing schemes, e.g. CLX.
Cheers
--
Marco
From: André Thieme
Subject: Re: Wanna try LISP.. don't know which variant to choose from. Please help
Date:
Message-ID: <d82rj6$7np$1@ulric.tng.de>
CPUFreak91 schrieb:
> I want to try LISP but I have no idea which variant to choose from.
> Could you help me decide? I also would like to know where to find some
> good downloadable tutorials/manuals for your fav. version of lisp. I
> preferably use Slackware Linux for my coding these days...
http://www.cliki.net/Getting%20Started
Andr�
--