[comp.sys.mac.programmer] Beginning Mac Programming - yet again!

frank@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Bob Frank) (03/05/88)

Oh, no!! Not another one of these... ( I hear you cry in pain). (-:
I, too, am a newcomer to the mac - but not to programming.
We have had lots of discussion about Pascal and C, but none 
about what is available for symbolic processing, 
particularly in LISP.  I would really like something that
could produce stand alone code.  I am a grad student
so I don't have a great deal of money - any tips about less 
expensive, but still functional packages would be enormously 
appreciated!!!!!

If there is significant response, I will gladly summarize for
the net.

	Thanks in Advance
	Bob Frank

Bob Frank (frank@linc.cis.upenn.edu)           | Why make sense when you
Department of Computer and Information Science |    can make pizza?
University of Pennsylvania		       |

jasst3@cisunx.UUCP (Jeffrey A. Sullivan) (03/11/88)

In article <3566@super.upenn.edu>, frank@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Bob Frank) writes:
> We have had lots of discussion about Pascal and C, but none 
> about what is available for symbolic processing, 
> particularly in LISP.  I would really like something that
> could produce stand alone code.  I am a grad student
> so I don't have a great deal of money - any tips about less 
> expensive, but still functional packages would be enormously 
> appreciated!!!!!

Okay.  There are three major players in the lisp war (hah) on the mac.  In my
very stilted opinion, you have only two real choices: Coral Allegro CL, or
Semantic Microsystem's MacScheme+Toolsmith.  Both offer full language support
(ACL of CL, MS+T of Scheme, of course, and CL is much bigger than Scheme.) and
have a highlevel object system which implements user interface controls such
as Windoing menus, and quickdraw.

I use Allegro CL, and am perfectly happy with it for my AI work.  However, it
can not generate standalones now (though will - sort of - in the near future).
MacScheme+Toolsmith does.  I do not use MacScheme, but it has come highly
recommended by many people, and has been poo-poo'ed by some researchers here.
In all, however, they remarks have been positive.  Coral Allegro CL will soon
have a standalone generator which creates files as big or bigger than the CL 
core and no faster (the CL core is 750+K!!) but in about a year (sigh) they 
hope to have a compilation environment out that will be competetive with those
C compilers we are all so fond of.

ExperCommon Lisp is (I have heard) a non-full implentation of CL, and I have
heard many bad things about it, like crashes galore.  Some of my classmates
have used it and curse the day it was spawned, so I'd stay away.  However, it
can generate standalone applications.  Sheesh.

Hope this helps.


-- 
..........................................................................
Jeffrey Sullivan			  | University of Pittsburgh
jas@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu		  | Intelligent Systems Studies Program
jasper@PittVMS.BITNET, jasst3@cisunx.UUCP | Graduate Student

arbaugh@hqda-ai.UUCP (Bill Arbaugh) (03/13/88)

In article <3566@super.upenn.edu>, frank@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Bob Frank) writes:
> We have had lots of discussion about Pascal and C, but none 
> about what is available for symbolic processing, 
> particularly in LISP.  I would really like something that
> could produce stand alone code.

I have worked with two different Lisp systems on the MacII.  The
first is Expertelligence Common Lisp.  It is not a full
implementation of Common Lisp, and the editor is the plain Mac
editor which some people like.  Personally, I prefer an EMACS like
editor.  It does however allow you to create standalone
applications.  It also has a rather nice interface builder, alas
you pay more for it, that allows you to build a resource for you
application.  
     The second system I have used is Allegro Common Lisp
from Coral.  This is a complete implementation of Common Lisp.  It
supports the Common Lisp Object System and maybe X windows now
(I'm checking into that).  The editor is an EMACS like editor.
The only bad thing I can say about Coral is that you can not
create standalone applications.  There are ways, kludges,
that you can use to make it look like a standalone though.  If
there is any interest I can post the info.  






-- 
==========================================================
Bill Arbaugh			   Phone:  (202) 694-6900
UUCP:  *!uunet!cos!hqda-ai!arbaugh ARPA:  ai02@hios-pent.arpa
==========================================================

jas@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Jeffrey A. Sullivan) (03/17/88)

In article <1034@hqda-ai.UUCP>, arbaugh@hqda-ai.UUCP (Bill Arbaugh) writes:
>      The second system I have used is Allegro Common Lisp
> from Coral.  This is a complete implementation of Common Lisp.  It
> supports the Common Lisp Object System and maybe X windows now
> (I'm checking into that).  The editor is an EMACS like editor.
> The only bad thing I can say about Coral is that you can not
> create standalone applications.  There are ways, kludges,
> that you can use to make it look like a standalone though.  If
> there is any interest I can post the info.  
I'd just like to point out that Coral Allegro Common Lisp does _not_, itself,
support CLOS.  There is a version of Portable CommonLoops, a partial
implementation of the CLOS standard by Xerox, that runs in Coral ACL, but it is
not supported by Coral in any way, nor is there any documentation other than 
the CLOS spec, which is pretty dense and almost totally lacking in examples.

As of a few weeks ago, they are not supporting X windows, nor have I ever heard
them claim they would.  There _was_ some talk of their supporting
CommonWindows (which I assume is a commonlisp windowing package not yet spec'd)
but this would be far in the future.

If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know.



-- 
..........................................................................
Jeffrey Sullivan			  | University of Pittsburgh
jas@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu		  | Intelligent Systems Studies Program
jasper@PittVMS.BITNET, jasst3@cisunx.UUCP | Graduate Student