Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!lanl!lambda!roberts From: roberts@studguppy.lanl.gov (Doug Roberts) Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: Unix Lisp Environments (why the slow evolution) Message-ID: Date: 18 May 89 15:13:04 GMT References: <7802@zodiac.UUCP> <421@skye.ed.ac.uk> Sender: news@lanl.gov Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory Lines: 63 In-reply-to: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk's message of 8 May 89 17:37:05 GMT In article <421@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes: > In article roberts@studguppy.lanl.gov (Doug Roberts) writes: > I think, however, that you missed one of the major reasons that the > Unix LISP environment is still decidedly inferior to a LISPm: the > majority of the market that is considering LISP as a language in which > to deliver applications is currently a member of either the Unix or > the VMS community: _they are not aware of the productivity that exists > on a LISPm_. > > I think you have identified an important point. However, I would > guess that most of the people who implement Lisps for Unix (Lucid, > Franz Inc, at al) do have a fairly good idea of what the Lisp Machines > accomplish. So why don't they provide the same thing on conventional > machines? > > I think it's possible to provide environments that are very similar. > People here who use Inference ART (Automated Reasoning Tool, or > something like that), which is built on top of Lisp, report that the > ART environment on a Sun is very close to that on a Symbolics, > although at the Lisp level the debugger probably isn't as good. > > However, possible is not the same as easy, and I suspect the Lisp > implementors have not had sufficient resources to let them prepare > environmental tools as soon as they'd have liked. > During my visit to Lucid a few months ago, I got the impression that many (but not all) of the internals people there had a previous history with LispMs. I did receive an interesting comment to my suggestion that they should try to emulate the functionality of Symbolics' window debugger in their lisp environment. The comment was something like" "Groan... Just what we need... To make our product more Symbolics-like." I suspect that the Unix lisp developers' priorities regarding development environments are changing. After one of my previous postings in which I complained about the lack of good debuggers & inspectors, I received mail form Lucid and Ibuki, and phone calls from Franz and Envos. Ibuki, Franz, and Envos all offered their products as examples of "new, improved" more functional development lisp environments. I haven't heard directly from Lucid regarding any efforts they might have on-going, but I did read in a previous posting from this group about a "Cadillac" environment that they are working on?? I also don't know what Sun might be working on, if anything (Sun of SPE? :-}).. On that note... --Doug -- =============================================================== Douglas Roberts Los Alamos National Laboratory Box 1663, MS F-602 Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (505)667-4569 dzzr@lanl.gov ===============================================================