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From: kpc@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov (k p c)
Subject: Re: Porting Lucid/SunOS to Allegro/Solaris
In-Reply-To: frazier@oahu.cs.ucla.edu's message of 23 Feb 1995 21:09:50 GMT
Message-ID: <1995Feb26.040210.20236@ptolemy-ethernet.arc.nasa.gov>
To: frazier@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Frazier)
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Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 04:00:04 GMT

Quoth frazier@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Frazier):
>    We need to know how difficult it will be to port an application
> from Lucid Common Lisp running under SunOS to Allegro Common Lisp
> running under Solaris.  Of particular interesit - do the Motif
> bindings change?  Thanks for any feedback!

I am porting a lot of my own and others' code from Allegro CL 4.2 on
SunOS 4.1.3 to Allegro CL 4.2 on Solaris 2.3.  As a CL user, I
personally don't think one OS is any better than the other.  Just
incompatible.

I have found porting code that CLTL2 says is portable to Solaris to be
almost painless.  I'll leave Lucid -> Allegro questions to others, but
I personally do not fear porting nominally portable code too much.

But that leaves a lot around the edges.  I have found porting code
that uses foreign functions to be difficult, and in the case of CLM,
VERY difficult.  Allegro's FFI is more limited in Solaris than in
SunOS.  Foreign code not be written for Solaris can be difficult.

I use on SunOS, and I am trying to port, with a GREAT DEAL of
difficulty, Gina/CLM 2.3.  CLM's are the only Motif bindings for CL
that I have used, but I think there are one or two others.  Perhaps
Lucid has Motif built in.  Allegro does not, that I know of.

CL and EL have been trivial to port.  CLM/Gina remains very difficult
and it is still crashing on me, although it now compiles and loads.
Everything else (programs and shell scripts) is in between.

It would be very nice if there were a widely used, easy to use, widely
portable user interface system for CL.  But I don't know of one,
though I have read the FAQ, and have considered some of the systems
described in it.  Maybe it is still too early and we have a few more
years.

Hope it helps.
