Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!hans From: hans@acsu.buffalo.edu (Hans Chalupsky) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ti.explorer Subject: Re: X11M (Monochrome X11 server) - Do people still use Explorers? Message-ID: <47877@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> Date: 28 Nov 90 04:15:28 GMT References: <9011221135.AA02237@mizar.DoCS.UU.SE> Sender: news@acsu.Buffalo.EDU Distribution: inet Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci Lines: 60 Nntp-Posting-Host: sybil.cs.buffalo.edu Bjorn.Victor@docs.uu.se (Bjorn Victor) writes: >Is there anybody out there, still? One wonders, doesn't one? > .......... >I still have some problems, though, that I was wondering if anybody >has solved already. (How many of you are really using the X11 server?) Even if you already have the patches that solve the problems with the initial version, or you waited long enough and finally got Rel-6.1, you probably still won't want to use it unless you have never used a SPARC station or thelike before. Maybe our Explorer-II's don't have enough memory (8Meg), but they are awfully slow as X-servers which defeats the purpose of a sophisticated user interface. >(How many of you are really using Explorers any longer...?) This is what I wonder too. I've been a Lisp machine buff for a long time but I think Lisp machines will go extinct soon. Here are some reasons: - other common lisps are getting better and better (if I want to know whether some of the code I write is real portable Common Lisp I try to compile it in Allegro or Lucid, not on an Explorer) - there is no real speed advantage anymore (actually, in our environment Explorers are at the low end of the speed scale now - but the comparison to other systems like Suns might be unfair because of different memory configurations) - development environments (such as various fancy lisp-modes for GNU emacs) are (in my opinion) better then the TI-Explorer environment (there are still a few things missing such as window based debuggers and inspectors, but you can get approximations of those in the Allegro composer or Sun's SPE) - last but not least, I want to have a full integration with all the nice stuff I can have from the UNIX environment, without having to have a re-implementation of each and every thing in Lisp (e.g., news, mail, revision control (rcs), x-server, window managers, nice tex/latex modes, automatic incremental BACKUPS done by system-managers,....). I admit that ZMACS is still nicer than - say - an X-based Emacs such as Epoch which comes pretty close with highlighing, region marking etc., but I'm willing to sacrifice this little extra bit of sophistication for Epoch's portability, wide availability and integration with Unix and X, especially,for the large number of users out there that constantly write new and better packages to make life easier (very important considering the dying audience of this news group). Maybe some of the reasons mentioned above are not quite that compelling if one considers a Mac+Explorer board (or Sun+Explorer board if it exists) configuration, but I don't think this is the right way to go. I'm open to any comments. I changed "religions" and I want to know what other people think about this issue. People in my department often ask me what my ideal Lisp development environment would look like. My answer is: I know what it would look like, it does not yet exist, but it certainly is not a Lisp machine anymore (be it Explorer or Symbolics). Hans hans@cs.buffalo.edu Hans Chalupsky, Dept. of CS, 226 Bell Hall, SUNY@Buffalo, NY 14260.