dst@DST.BOLTZ.CS.CMU.EDU (Dave Touretzky) (09/12/89)
This note explains how to obtain two FREE Lisp educational tools called SDRAW and DTRACE. The tools are used extensively in my new Lisp book, "Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation", published last month by Benjamin/Cummings. This is a totally revised and improved version of my previous Lisp book; even the publisher has changed. But anyway, about the free tools: SDRAW is a totally portable read-eval-draw loop that evaluates Lisp expressions and draws the result as a cons cell diagram on the screen. It has proven especially valuable for teaching beginners the differences between CONS, LIST, and APPEND. DTRACE is an enhanced Common Lisp tracing tool that offers a more detailed and readable display than the trace packages most implementations provide. It is very useful for teaching recursion and applicative operators. The book contains examples of how to use each tool, as well as source listings for the generic versions. (But you DON'T have to buy the book to get the software. Read on.) There are five versions of each tool. The generic version will run in any legal Common Lisp implementation. There are also enhanced versions specialized for Lucid Lisp, CMU Common Lisp, Golden Common Lisp version 1, and Golden Common Lisp version 3. The CMU and Lucid versions of SDRAW use CLX calls to produce nice X11 graphics. The two Golden Common Lisp versions of SDRAW and DTRACE accomplish the same effect using the IBM graphic character set. Both tools can easily be ported to other Lisp implementations. There are two ways to obtain this free software. First, you can use anonymous FTP. Open an FTP connection to B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU, login as user anonymous (any password), cd to directory /usr/dst/public/lisp, and grab the README file. Then take whatever other files are appropriate to your Lisp implementation. Note: you won't be able to access any other directories except the one just mentioned, so you should cd to it directly. If you don't have FTP access, another way to obtain the software for free is to write to the Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, 390 Bridge Parkway, Redwood City, CA 94065. They will send you all five versions on one 5.25 inch IBM PC-format floppy disk. My understanding is that they will send a disk to anyone who claims to have bought the book; no proof of purchase is necessary. Benjamin/Cummings is a division of Addison-Wesley, so if you're a faculty type you should also be able to get the diskette from your local A-W sales representative. It has its own ISBN number: 0-8053-0493-2. Feedback on these tools is welcome. Send mail to dst@cs.cmu.edu. PS: If you want to port the software to other Lisps, you'll want to look in Appendices A and B of the book for advice on how to do this. -- Dave Touretzky / School of Computer Science dst@cs.cmu.edu / Carnegie Mellon University -- Dave Touretzky / School of Computer Science dst@cs.cmu.edu / Carnegie Mellon University