[comp.sys.xerox] PCL dfasls

SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (Christopher Schmidt) (11/17/87)

	I've compiled the version of PCL (Portable CommonLoops) announced
August 28th and filed it in [SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.edu]<LISPUSERS.LYRIC.PCL>
	Basically, to load it, you'd want to grab all the .dfasl files
in that directory and copy them into a directory at your site.  Then
you'd set PCL::*PCL-DIRECTORY* to the pathname of that directory, load
DEFSYS.DFASL, and evaluate (PCL::LOAD-PCL) to load the rest of the
files (20 of them).  The mechanism is described in DEFSYS.LISP.
	After loading PCL, you can load PCL-ENV.DFASL which integrates
PCL more closely into the Xerox Lisp environment; eg. with the inspector.
	As I understand it--and I am no authority on this subject--PCL
is at present the closest portable object-oriented programming system
to CLOS, the pending Common Lisp Object System standard.  It seems to
be a close match to the functions described in section 2 of the
February CLOS specification (filed in CONCEP.DVI and FUNCTI.DVI).  PCL
runs in at least half a dozen different implementations of Common Lisp.
	I hesitate to post PCL on SUMEX, as it makes it no more widely
available than on parcvax and introduces the possibility of version
skew.  Get it from SUMEX at your own risk!  The main reason I make this
posting is for the benefit of people who didn't know PCL existed at all.
	There is a mailing list for users of PCL.  Requests for addition
may be sent to Owners-CommonLoops.PA@Xerox.com
--Christopher
-------

fritzson@bigburd.PRC.Unisys.COM (Richard Fritzson) (11/17/87)

>  From: SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
>  Subject: PCL dfasls
>  Date: 17 Nov 87 06:13:34 GMT

>  	As I understand it--and I am no authority on this subject--PCL
>  is at present the closest portable object-oriented programming system
>  to CLOS, the pending Common Lisp Object System standard.  It seems to
>  be a close match to the functions described in section 2 of the
>  February CLOS specification (filed in CONCEP.DVI and FUNCTI.DVI).  

PCL is the closest thing to CLOS you can get, but, if you are just
starting out with the February CLOS spec and PCL, you might want to
know that the following functions, described in the CLOS spec, are
apparently not yet implemented:

	defgeneric-options
	defgeneric-options-setf
	class-changed
	make-generic-function
	define-method-combination
	make-method
	make-method-call
	method-qualifiers
	multiple-value-prog2
	method-combination-error
	invalid-method-error

Specifically, declarative method combination has not yet been implemented.

I'm not knocking PCL. We use it and very much appreciate having it.
I'm only posting this to help anyone who is just starting to use it
figure out what parts of CLOS are implemented in PCL.