Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!sharkey!cfctech!teemc!mibte!gamma!towernet!pyuxp!pyuxd!pyuxf!asg
From: asg@pyuxf.UUCP (alan geller)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: LISP compiler? (really future of MACL)
Summary: More MACL 2.0 desired features
Message-ID: <616@pyuxf.UUCP>
Date: 13 Nov 89 15:58:55 GMT
References: <5130@internal.Apple.COM> <5149@internal.Apple.COM>
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ
Lines: 26


As long as this newsgroup is temporarily becoming a forum for requesting
enhancements to Mac Allegro Common Lisp, for the 2.0 release:

1) Would it be possible to use an incremental garbage collector, rather than
	the current stop-and-copy?  Given that MACL 2.0 will usually be
	running under System 7.0, we'll have lots of virtual address space
	for from-space and to-space, maybe even multiple generations.
	For running MACL as a prototyping environment, this isn't a big
	deal, but in a real application it annoys users when their cursor
	changes to 'GC' and their system freezes for 10 seconds.
	Even if there were a 'MACL 2.0 extended' that had an incremental
	garbage collector as an extra-cost option, that would be better than
	nothing.

2) Serious rumor has it that MACL 2.0 will support CLOS directly, rather than
	by using a generic implementation like PCL.  I applaud this, but I
	have a couple of requests along this line:  please make sure that
	print and describe are implemented as generic functions!  For those
	of us who use objects extensively, this is very important.  Since
	The current Object Lisp does this right, I assume that MACL 2.0 will
	also, but I just want to stress its importance.

Alan Geller
Regal Data Systems
...!{rutgers,princeton}!bellcore!pyuxf!asg