coffee@aero.ARPA (Peter C. Coffee) (11/04/86)
In article <2501@osu-eddie.UUCP> verber@osu-eddie.UUCP (Mark Verber) writes: >There are four 'real' Lisp compilers for the Macintosh... : >#2. ExperLisp. I don't recommend this compiler. The compiler is > buggy. They advertise that it is CommonLisp compatible but > it doesn't support closures, use lexical scoping or have > multiple name spaces. I guess you can call it CommonLisp > since the function names are the same. I have talked to a > number of Lisp implimentors about the product, and all have > felt that the ExperLisp compiler just wasn't that hot. I regularly work on a Symbolics 3640 and on MS-DOS machines as well as on a MacPlus with ExperLisp. ExperLisp 1.5 is quite stable, with generally higher speed than earlier releases; it's usually about triple the speed of interpreted GCLisp on a 7MHz 8086. The user interface is sublime. It does _not_ produce stand-alone applications, but if you can wait until early December they may have a surprise for you (a non- disclosure agreement prevents me from saying more). BTW, ExperLisp has _always_ been lexically scoped, even though this put severe constraints on lambda expressions in earlier releases: 1.5 fixes these. On a 1 MB Mac Plus, I find that ExperLisp 1.5 with 24000 cons cells and 4800 symbols allocated runs from 1-3% the speed of compiled Common Lisp on a 2 MB Symbolics 3640. I have no commercial relationship with ExperTelligence, though they have expressed an interest in marketing my on-line documentation system for ExperLisp (still in development) as an enhancement product. If I didn't like ExperLisp, however, I wouldn't bother... Regards, PC