Common Lisp favourites

Greetings,

I am co-authoring a (German) book on more productive
programming, where we have a chapter devoted to Lisp.

Just to make sure that we don't forget the "one and ultimate
highlight" of programming with Lisp, I'd like to ask you, what
are the top *two* reasons for your programming in Lisp.

My other question is not intended for publication in this
book, but just personal curiosity (no cats around here, so
no animals are endangered by writing this message):

I have used Macintosh Common Lisp some years ago, when
we were at System 6.0.5 and 7. Now I have various implementations
(mostly dormant) on my linux box, doing real work in 
Xanalys LispWorks. I have never used Allegro CL.

1. What can ACL do that LW can't?
2. What can LW do what ACL can't?

These questions are referring to both IDE properties,
qualitites, stupidities and supply and abilities of
accompanying libraries.

I'm also happy to receive private email about this, if you
don't want to speak publicly about this.

Thanks,
s.
--
Stefan Schmiedl
Approximity GmbH                                      http://www.approximity.com
Research & Development                             mailto:stefan@approximity.com
Loreleystr. 5, 94315 Straubing, Germany
Tel. (0 94 21) 74 01 06, Fax (0 94 21) 74 01 21

shhhh ... I can't hear my code!

Re: Common Lisp favourites

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Re: Common Lisp favourites

Stefan Schmiedl <s@xss.de> writes:

> Greetings,
> 
> I am co-authoring a (German) book on more productive
> programming, where we have a chapter devoted to Lisp.
> 
> Just to make sure that we don't forget the "one and ultimate
> highlight" of programming with Lisp, I'd like to ask you, what
> are the top *two* reasons for your programming in Lisp.
freedom (.75 reasons)
flexibility (.75 reasons)
fun (.05)

I tried hard to fit this hard limit ;-)

A chapter in a book is quite a bunch. Why don't you come up with some
suggestion what the reasons are for you?

> 
> I have used Macintosh Common Lisp some years ago, when
> we were at System 6.0.5 and 7. Now I have various implementations
> (mostly dormant) on my linux box, doing real work in 
> Xanalys LispWorks. I have never used Allegro CL.
> 
> 1. What can ACL do that LW can't?
In what sense? Do you mean what libraries do exist which are not just
available on one of the implemetations or what?

> 2. What can LW do what ACL can't?

> 
> These questions are referring to both IDE properties,
> qualitites, stupidities and supply and abilities of
> accompanying libraries.
Ah I see. Well you can check out yourself. Try the evaluation copies.

Regards
Friedrich

Re: Common Lisp favourites

At 11:12 AM 26/04/2002 +0200, you wrote:
>Just to make sure that we don't forget the "one and ultimate
>highlight" of programming with Lisp, I'd like to ask you, what
>are the top *two* reasons for your programming in Lisp.

1) Lisp is a multi-paradigm language, especially including the ability to 
express designs clearly (I recently posted my thoughts about Design to 
comp.lang.lisp - I'll send you a copy privately)

2) Maturity - commercial lisps have performance that compares with other 
compiled languages (e.g. C / C++).  Unlike in the (distant?) past, I can 
use all of the swoopy features of lisp and its paradigm and get a result 
that is not noticeably different in performance on a PC than if I'd used C 
or C++ in its (much more cumbersome) paradigm.  This may not be Lisp's 
"fault" - PC's are much faster, people's expectations are much different 
(the Java marketing machine broke down people's knee-jerk opposition to 
words like "garbage collection", "interpreter", etc.; people have come to 
expect that PC programs are 10's of megabytes in size).  Lisp has been at 
this stage a lot longer than other languages, hence, is the most mature 
language capable of capitalizing on these new perceptions and expectations.

ACL vs. LWW - don't know, since ACL's licensing arrangements were untenable 
for our purposes at the time we made the choice (a few years ago).

pt