jonnyg@AARDVARK.UMD.EDU (Jon Greenblatt) (02/02/90)
Thanks for the info. You ask why I prefer Scheme to xlisp... The main reason is I need a language with an algebraic syntax, dynamic gabage collection, OOPS, incramental compiling, and easy prototyping. List and structure manipulation is also nice. Right now the closest thing I can find is Actor for MS Windows. I am trying to get my boss to shy away from MS Windows and go to a syntaticaly extended Lisp/Scheme. I pick Scheme over lisp because: 1: It is a smaller language base to build the syntax extensions. (I already have most of what I want writen for Xlisp already) I am not the only one who needs to read my code. My graphics coding tends to be very algebraicly intensive so the old lispy prefix operators just don't work out. 2: Name spaces are more flexable so I don't need to change object contexts just to use a different name space. 3: Scheme is smaller so less of the interpreter will be swapped out of memory. If I were not going to completely change the syntax of Scheme I would prefer lisp to scheme but I feel the smaller base is better for what I have planed. I am no expert on Scheme at this time but I feel I do have a fair knowlege of what it has to offer. I could go for a language like ELK or CLX but I feel I have a better shot at supporting XScheme myself with little overhead. I am a firm believer in small interpreters. It would be nice if XScheme were based on top of C++ or Objective C so both the C and Scheme sides could be object oriented. JonnyG. PS: I am CC'ing this to xpert because others may find this of interest.