[net.sources.mac] XLISP author

info-mac@uw-beaver (02/02/85)

From: betz@harvard.ARPA (David Betz)

Hi,
	I am David Betz, the author of XLISP.  Dan Winkler of Harvard has
gratiously arranged to get me an account with arpanet access so that
I can answer questions for XLISP users.  Please feel free to ask questions
and make suggestions.  I am interested in making XLISP a better package and
will seriously consider any suggestions.

	David Betz

bhyde@inmet.UUCP (02/14/85)

I'm not confident that this makes any sense... but in L* a lisp like
language there is an internal storage form for list that places a
list in an array holding only the cars.  I notice that you keep the
list elements in nodes that have a lot of space in them.  Might be
that the garbage collector could pack up short lists into this kind
of array like form.  Then the type macro could take the address using
of th enode using only the high order bits.  When a cluster of nodes
was allocted it you have to be aligned to make that possible.
  I read someplace that most lists are very short so it would almost
catch all cases.
  Wierd idea huh?		ben hyde, intermetrics Inc.