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From: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer)
Subject: Re: Why lisp failed in the marketplace
Message-ID: <1997Feb24.114003.16267@wavehh.hanse.de>
Reply-To: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de
Organization: '(a (cons tructive organization))
References: <5eimv3$fpk@Masala.CC.UH.EDU>
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 97 11:40:03 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.lisp:25698 comp.lang.scheme:18887

cosc19z5@Bayou.UH.EDU (cosc19z5@bayou.uh.edu) writes:

>Could you tell me more about LispWorks or point me to a URL
>for more info?  Is it commercial for example or pd?  How's
>the GUI support?  Extensions?  Etc....?

It is a "full-priced" commercial Unix implementation. See
www.harlequin.com. They ship demos versions, as do other Lisp
companies, so it is quite pointless to comment on the quality and
usablity here.

But related to the actual discussion, Lispworks takes some Lisp
concepts further than other Lisp implementations on stock hardware. 

Lispworks is an integrated environment with editor and browsers, while
most other implementations use an external editor and integrate
manually between Lisp runtime and some tools.

The result is that Lispworks has advantages when it comes to a number
of customizations and programmability (word?) of tools. Die-hard Lisp
hackers often find the closest possible integration of running Lisp
and tools used to program it just right. Others find it important to
use their Lisp from the same editor they use for everything
else. Die-harder Lisp fans will of course use the Lispworks editor for
everything else, too :-)

In that way, like Rainer said, it is closer to the environment of a
Lisp machine than most other stock-hardware Lisps are. Of course, it
has it disadvantages, too. You can shoot your editor by killing your
Lisp image and you can't use normal elisp code for the editor (what
Franz Allgro can). See the ralated thread about editors going on just
now in comp.lang.lisp.

Lispworks has a number of extensions (Prolog, database access,
interface to knowledgeworks) and advanced GUI building tools.

As I said, demo versions are your friend. MCL and CMUCL/Hemlock are
other integrated Common Lisp/Editor/Tools systems.

Martin
-- 
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Martin_Cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de http://cracauer.cons.org  Fax.: +4940 5228536
"As far as I'm concerned,  if something is so complicated that you can't ex-
 plain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway"- Calvin
