[comp.sys.xerox] compatibilty between xerox and sun

ECOOPER@RCCA.BBN.COM (Eric Cooper x2947) (09/03/88)

We are confronted with the possibility to try to maintain CommonLisp and 
PCL code on both 1186s and Suns (or maybe Mac2s).  Does anyone have any 
experience with this.  We are *not* planning on purchasing the byte encoder 
(or whatever it's called) that makes a Sun emulate an 1186.
Thanks in advance.
-eric

Lanning.pa@XEROX.COM (Stan Lanning) (09/03/88)

Yep.


[Flame (well, how about a warm oven) on]  

I'm not sure if that was your only question ("Does anyone have any 
experience with this"), so here's a few pointers.  Don't expect much.  After
trying to do exactly this for a while now, I'm down on everyone and everything.

() Where are you going to keep your files?  On a Xerox Product server (If so,
does you sun talk to it)?  Or on the Sun (If so, does your 1186 talk to it)?
This is not an easy issue to deal with.

() Give up on the FileManager.  It is too hard to deal with Filemanager format
files from a text editor.  Not only that, it is a lot easier to use #+ and #- to
conditionalize your files if they are plain text files.

() Performance tuning will be a real pain.  The Suns don't have any utilities to
help, and 1186 perfomance it often dominated by things like the
garbage-collector.  Use (DISASSEMBLE...)?  Carry listing around and stare at
them every chance you get?  Think real hard?  But then again, since you seem to
want the application to run on an 1186, you can't care that much about
performance; you must care about the user interface, which brings us to...

() Windows etc are impossible deal with.  If the program has a sophisticated UI,
you can't do it portably.  X is OK (kind of) for the Sun, but there is no X
server on the 1186.  CommonWindows was based on Interlisp windows, so there may
be enough commonality there to help, but I wouldn't bet on it.  So maybe what
you really want is a progamming environment worthy of the name.  That brings us
to...

() Emacs.  What more can I say?

[its time to go home and kick the dog and yell at the kid]

----- smL