Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!docs.uu.se!Bjorn.Victor
From: Bjorn.Victor@docs.uu.se (Bjorn Victor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ti.explorer
Subject: Re: X11M (Monochrome X11 server) - Do people still use Explorers?
Message-ID: <9011280928.AA06943@mizar.DoCS.UU.SE>
Date: 28 Nov 90 09:28:17 GMT
References: <47877@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
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Lines: 91


  >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. 

Yes, I know.  I *have* used SPARCstations running X11R4, quite a lot,
and now I'm using an Explorer I (not II), so the performance is...
well... not very high.  But on the other hand, it's better with an
Explorer screen in my office than a SPARCstation in the lab, until we
get some fresh funds to buy me a modern workstation.

And, to lead into the other subject, it's a real nice hacking machine.
I can spend hours fixing a subtle bug, or re-implementing a nice
feature from somewhere else, and it's FUN!  On the other hand, it's
fun hacking Emacs lisp too (e.g. re-implementing Zmacs features), and
on the third hand, I really should do something completely different
-- my research.

  >>(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 agree, mostly.  I still haven't seen a lisp-mode for Emacs that
beats the Explorer environment, though, but some would say that I
haven't seen Harlequin.

  >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).

This is tricky.  Zmacs has some very nice features, and inherits (so
to speak) some other very nice features from the LISPM environment.
GNU Emacs, on the other hand, has a better design in many aspects
(e.g. less Lisp-specific (e.g. syntax), mode-hooks, regexps), but a
less good design in some aspects (e.g. no difference between m-X and
c-m-X commands, less good undo, no separate redo, less powerful
language, worse compiler).  I think Emacs will eventually have most of
Zmacs' "graphic" features (e.g. multiple fonts), but some of the other
bugs are very hard to get out.  And it will always live with 8-bit
characters, which is a loss from the 12-bit LISPM characters.  You
can't both have "clean" ISO 8859-1 and a Meta key, for instance.

  >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 agree that this is not the Right Way.  

  >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).

Well, it's certainly not an Explorer, the Symbolics environment is
*much* better (sorry, RMS and all old CADR-hackers).  But there is a
difference between "ideal Lisp environment" and "ideal workstation
environment".  An ideal Lisp environment doesn't (ideally) need
anything else than a Lisp environment.  On the other hand, I guess
that not many of us are plain Lisp hackers anymore, but need and use
more and more of the good tools that have/are emerging in the UNIX
environment.

-- Bjorn Victor			Bjorn.Victor@DoCS.UU.SE
Dept. of Computer Systems	tel: +46 18183169; fax: +46 18550225
Uppsala University, Sweden	"I'd rather hack a Lisp Machine!" (yes!)