[comp.ai.edu] XLisp? Just how good is it?

EH82SANU@MIAMIU.BITNET (Eric Hilder) (05/04/91)

Hey netters!  Can you guys tell me just how good XLisp is on the Mac?  Is
it as good as common lisp?  Just how 'artificial' of an intelligence can
you use it for?  What are its limitations?  Any input is appreciated.  Thanks
alot.
 
--Eric Hilder
  eh82sanu@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu
  ehhilder@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu

n138ct@tamuts.tamu.edu (Brent Burton) (05/05/91)

Eric asks about XLisp on the macintoshes..

I've used XLisp (1.8 or 2.0 - I don't remember) since last summer.  It was
very simple coding.

However, this spring I used it extensively for my AI class.  It proved to
work quite well, and all Common Lisp I used worked without modification.
For the uses, most were straight textbook examples, but other code consisted
of typical homework problems.
The methods coded were: pattern matching, ISA/HAS relationships, production
systems, and possibly a few others.

Anyway, I found XLisp to be quite competent for my uses.  My professor told
me how bad or rather, how limited, XLisp was, but it worked out fine.

I did not use any of XLisp's objects or other extended features.


Brent Burton
  n138ct@tamuts.tamu.edu

dandrews@bilver.uucp (Dave Andrews) (05/05/91)

In article <91124.043703EH82SANU@MIAMIU.BITNET> EH82SANU@MIAMIU.BITNET (Eric Hilder) writes:
>Hey netters!  Can you guys tell me just how good XLisp is on the Mac?  Is
>it as good as common lisp?  Just how 'artificial' of an intelligence can
>you use it for?  What are its limitations?  Any input is appreciated.

I can't speak for the Mac implementation, but a couple of years ago I
was running Forgy's VPS5 under XLISP on an 8MHz AT clone.  It was a real
bow-wow.  Fired a production about once every three or four seconds.  But
it was fun, and I couldn't beat the price.

David Andrews  bilver!dandrews

afreeman@cs.utexas.edu (Andrew Charles Freeman) (05/09/91)

(Eric Hilder) writes:
>Hey netters!  Can you guys tell me just how good XLisp is on the Mac?  Is
>it as good as common lisp?  Just how 'artificial' of an intelligence can
>you use it for?  What are its limitations?  Any input is appreciated.  Thanks
>alot.

I use version 2.0 and like it alot.  It runs under MultiFinder, handles 
objects, arrays, streams, closures, macros and so on.  Best of all, it's free
and the source code is obtainable.

It lacks many Common Lisp functions such as multiple-value-bind, values, and
with-open-file, but hey, these are convenience functions anyway, right?

The moral is, if you're going to write it yourself, XLISP is great!  But
don't expect to download AI programs that run in Lucid's Lisp or KCL and run
them on your Mac.