db@racine.ACA.MCC.COM (Dave Bridgeland) (10/27/88)
I understand Sun's Symbolic Programming Environment (henceforth SPE) is out,
at least in betatest. Does anyone have experience with it? In particular,
1. How robust is it?
2. How does it compare with lisp machine development environments?
(Details please.) Does it have a display debugger? An inspector?
3. Is it compatible with gnuemacs?
4. Which lisps can it use? (Is the interface to the lisp published?
What requirements does it put on the lisp implementation underneath
it?)
5. Does it run on X, or just suntools?
On a related note, do any of the lisps available for the sun 4 take advantage
of the SPARC chip to do runtime type checking?
Dave.
I think we should start a protocol in comp.lang.lisp: If you are looking for
information about a topic, please include the word "Request" in your subject
line. Thus readers can tell the difference between
Subject: "Request for info on CLOS Standard"
someone looking for information on the CLOS standard -- and
Subject: "CLOS"
someone with news about the CLOS standard.tgd@mist.cs.orst.edu (Tom Dietterich) (10/28/88)
We have recently started using SPE 1.0 on top of Lucid 2.1 on a SUN 4/280 running OS 3.2. Since there have been some questions, I thought I'd give my initial impressions. 1. How robust is it? Not enough experience to say yet. 2. Comparison with Lisp Machine environments. It has the basic functionality of lisp machine environments. I am an Interlisp-D user, so that is my standard of comparison. SPE contains a scrollable lisp listener, an emacs implemented in lisp, a cross-reference tool similar to MASTERSCOPE, and an application manager like the FILE Manager in Interlisp (which I haven't used yet). Once you have loaded a function into the listener, it builds an index for the locations of all functions, so that you can find the definition of a function very easily. The emacs scrolls and selects with the mouse as well as with the traditional keystrokes. The initial key bindings are standard. The cross reference tools is ok. (I haven't figured out how to get it to scan through macros...). It displays as graph of the calling structure. Buttoning nodes in the graph causes emacs to find to corresponding defun. The window-based debugger/inspector is the best part. When you enter a break, a small attached menu pops up that includes such options as "abort, pop, and debug". Debug causes a nice window-based debugger to appear. In this debugger, the stack is shown as a menu in one pane with the current stack frame in another pane. Buttoning a variable in the stack frame gives you an inspector on the value of that variable. Buttoning a stack frame in the stack window moves you to that stack frame. You can resume execution from that point (i.e., REVERT for Interlisp-D hackers). There are still some rough edges, but I'm told that the next version of SPE will be significantly improved. 3. Compatibility with GNU. SPE is self-contained and contains its own emacs. You couldn't use gnuemacs with it. 4. What lisps does it run with? Good question. 5. X? NO. SPE runs inside one large Sunview window. I don't know what future plans are for supporting NEWS or X. --Tom
mike@ists (Mike Clarkson) (10/28/88)
In article <58@racine.ACA.MCC.COM>, db@racine.ACA.MCC.COM (Dave Bridgeland) writes: > I understand Sun's Symbolic Programming Environment (henceforth SPE) is out, > at least in betatest. Does anyone have experience with it? In particular, > > 3. Is it compatible with gnuemacs? No. > 4. Which lisps can it use? (Is the interface to the lisp published? > What requirements does it put on the lisp implementation underneath > it?) Lucid only. > 5. Does it run on X, or just suntools? Just suntools. It's a superset of Lucid Common Lisp, compiled into one big image. >11 Megabytes big! Mike. -- Mike Clarkson mike@ists.UUCP Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science mike@ists.yorku.ca York University, North York, Ontario, uunet!mnetor!yunexus!ists!mike CANADA M3J 1P3 +1 (416) 736-5611