Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!bacchus.pa.dec.com!granite.pa.dec.com!mwm From: mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: LISP & the Amiga.. Message-ID: Date: 4 Oct 90 15:30:55 GMT References: Sender: news@wrl.dec.com (News) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 73 In-Reply-To: joseph@valnet.UUCP's message of 3 Oct 90 22:04:12 GMT In article joseph@valnet.UUCP (Joseph P. Hillenburg) writes: > How about a complete modern LISP system based on Common LISP or > Scheme? Complete means it has a compiler that can generate stand-alone > programs, intuitionized graphical debugging package, and OOP > extensions. Now, make it useful on the Amiga by adding the ability to > access arbitrary libraries, and a clean interface to intuition & the > graphics library. I don't know, but I saw a scheme program on abcfd20 (can't remember where though) There are a number of semi-reasonable PD LISP systems available for the Amiga. A scheme (I suspect it's the same one), SIOD, and XLISP at least. XSCHEME may be available. Then there's AMXLISP, an XLISP extended to have access to the Amiga graphics interface. Finally, there's the one commercial LISP, Cambridge LISP. A table: mod comp s/a debug OOP libs intui AMXLISP x x x Cambridge x x Scheme x SIOD x XLISP x x XSCHEME x x x Mod -> It's a modern LISP (aka Common LISP or scheme) comp -> It has a compiler s/a -> Can generate stand-alone programs debug -> Has debugging facilities (never mind good ones!) OOP -> Object Oriented extensions libs -> access to the arbitrary libraries intui -> has clean intuition & graphics interface Cambridge LISP only had one very early release, and is probably an orphan now. It doesn't run properly on anything but 68000s. It's a dialect of LISP that wasn't used much in the US, and has important features from that dialect missing. Unless you want raw speed, this LISP is probably a waste of time. As you can tell, none of them do very well. SIOD, without an incredible amount of work, could be extended to include a compiler (I've done a proof-of-principle compiler for it already), and it should be possible to tweak it so you can generate stand-alone programs that use an amiga library. However, it's a subset of Scheme, so the modern x is only partial. To make up for that, full source is available, small and fairly clean. It's also very fast. For a speed contrast, there's XLISP & AMXLISP. Both are slow; easily being the slowest LISPs on the list. However, they're more complete than SIOD, and so make a better tool for someone wanting to get the feel of LISP. There is some attempt to look like Common LISP, the result being a nicer LISP than Cambridge. I haven't played with XSCHEME, and so don't know to how it compares in either of these areas. The Scheme is (last time I looked at it) a pretty straight-forward implementation of Scheme. If you've got the Abelson & Sussman's "Structuer and Interpretation of Computer Programs" and are looking for something to use with that, this is the correct choice. It's slower than SIOD, but faster than the X* LISPs. There are a number of freely distributable implementations of both Scheme & Common LISP. Maybe it's time to look into doing a port of one again.