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From: vrotney@netcom.com (William Paul Vrotney)
Subject: Re: Theory #51 (superior(?) programming languages)
In-Reply-To: thornley@cs.umn.edu's message of 13 Feb 1997 18:29:13 GMT
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Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 21:37:54 GMT
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In article <5dvmhp$5hf@epx.cis.umn.edu> thornley@cs.umn.edu (David
H. Thornley) writes:

> 
> In article <vrotneyE5IrLt.2HM@netcom.com>,
> William Paul Vrotney <vrotney@netcom.com> wrote:
> >In article <MPG.d6ba01d9475e4249896a8@news.demon.co.uk> cyber_surfer@wildcard.demon.co.uk (Cyber Surfer) writes:
> >> ...
> >> 
> >> Perhaps the biggest problem that Lisp has not even a 
> >> technical one. It's the price. A Lisp that costs 8 times as 
> >> much as a C++ for the same platform, and supports a subset 
> >> of features (no multi-threading, say), then it doesn't help. 
> >> There are C++ people who will slag off VB and Delphi for far 
> >> less! What chance does Lisp have?
> >> 
> >
> >Sorry to have to repeat this again.  But this simply is not true.
> 
> Maybe not eight times, but the CL implementations I am familiar
> with are more expensive than C++.
> 
> On my favorite platform, the Macintosh, the obvious choices are
> Metrowerks Codewarrior and Macintosh Common Lisp.  CW costs about
> $400 max, $150 for students who aren't going to use it commercially.
> MCL costs about the same minimum, but the lowest cost for any
> use that involves distribution of object code is, I think, about
> $800.  The minimum price for a commercial implementation that can
> distribute anything besides source is $1000.
> 
> Now, this isn't going to stop a professional who thinks Lisp is
> better than C++.  For that person, the difference between $400
> and $1000 is trivial.  If Lisp allows him or her to work 10%
> faster, the difference in price is paid off within weeks.
> 

Exactly!  Is that not why we use high level languages to begin with?
Sounds like you are agreeing with me in the final analysis.

> It is going to stop the casual browser who might want to try Lisp.
> The entry cost for me, as a student, to do something for somebody
> else is $150 in C++, $800 or so in Lisp.  As a student user of
> Metrowerks, the only restriction is that I can't sell my compiled
> code commercially.  As a student user of MCL, I can't give anybody
> my compiled code, as the only way I have to save it, in effect,
> is as a lisp image, and Digitool would take great offense if I
> distributed that.
> 

Then use GCL for the distribution.  GCL is free.


> Granted there are quality differences.  Codewarrior is a good, but
> not superb, implementation of C++ (and C and Pascal and Java), while
> MCL is a superb Lisp system.  However, Codewarrior is simply more
> versatile, out of the box, than MCL.  With Codewarrior, I can compile
> Windows programs.  Codewarrior includes an applications framework,
> so getting a good GUI program running isn't that much mroe difficult
> than in Lisp.
> 
> Until I can write little programs in Lisp and give them to my friends
> to show them what I can do in Lisp, I'm going to have no luck in
> convincing them to try Lisp.  (Most of them are also anti-Lisp because
> of their earlier exposure to it, but that's another topic.)  I can't
> use public-domain Lisps for this, since I can't easily do a Mac-like
> program in them.
> 

Until your friends get enlightened and actually use Lisp you will not
convince them.  Please believe me when I tell you that I have a lot of
experience at this.  I have demonstrated to many people that Lisp
executables can be small, fast and cheap and this did not convince them.
It sure seems to me like the problem is dogmatism, pure and simple.


> > C++ is
> >not a library but Common Lisp contains quite a robust library.  Show us a
> >C++ library that has what Common Lisp has for the same price.  Furthermore
> >CL vendors like Franz give you quite a bit more than just CL with their
> >product like light weight processes, tree shakers etc.  Besides that,
> >nothing like *full* Common Lisp for C++ (by itself) currently even exists.
> >I can tell you as a Lisp library for C++ designer that it never will because
> >of inherent limitations of C++.
> >
> Granted.  

Thanks.

> There was debate about adding hash tables to the C++ library;
> as a Lisp hacker, of course, I just use them as a matter of course.
> On the other hand, C++ will get the job done, 

Not always true, depends on what you are doing.

> C++ libraries tend to
> be good (if not as convenient as CL), 

Not true, depends on what you are doing.  Is there a good convenient C++
library for doing AI programming?

> and it doesn't require quite
> as much new learning to write good C++ as it does to write good Lisp.

You pay for learning to use Lisp just once, you pay for long development
cycles with C++ over and over and over again.

There are so many quirks in C++ it is more a matter of discovering C++ than
it is a matter of learning it.  It is even as bad as discovering the quirks
in a particular implementation of C++, not to mention the quirks in
C++ libraries, like STL for example.


> (Even without CLOS, a good Lisp program uses much of the same
> concepts as a good C++ program.)

Not true, a good Lisp program usually uses CONSes and dynamic typing.

> 
> The big differences are price and redistributability.
> 

You can get many full Common Lisp systems for free nowadays and it is a
simple as FTPing them.


-- 

William P. Vrotney - vrotney@netcom.com
