Re: Which is the best implementation of LISP family of languages for real world programming ?

[bolega <gnuist006@gmail.com>]

On Jun 12, 2:02 am, "Antti \"Andy\" Ylikoski"
<antti.yliko...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 10.6.2010 23:14, bolega kirjoitti:
>
>
>
> > Which is the best implementation of LISP family of languages for real
> > world programming ?
>
> >http://wiki.alu.org/Implementation
>
> > Kindly pick one from commercial and one from open-source .
>
> > The criteria is :
>
> > libraries, gui interface and builder, libraries for TCP, and evolving
> > needs.
>
> > Please compare LISP and its virtues with other languages such as
> > javascript, python etc.
>
> > I put javascript in the context that it is very similar in its
> > architecture (homoiconic ie same representation for data-structures
> > and operations, ie hierarchical, which means nested-lists<=>  n-ary
> > tree<=>  binary tree<=>  linked-list<=>  dictionary<=>  task-subtask,
> > and implicitly based on what C calls pointers, and at machine level
> > the indirect addressing of memory) to lisp family.
>
> > I put python in the context that it has the most extensive libraries
> > and shares the build-fix virtue of lisp highlighted by Paul Graham in
> > his books. Python is touted for its rapid prototyping of guis. It
> > syntax enforces stable format which guards against programmer malice
> > or sloppiness - so that there is a certain level of legacy code
> > readability.
>
> > Both have eval but not clear what is the implementation efficiency to
> > justify the habit of excessively using it.
>
> > Certainly, lisp/scheme are excellent for learning the concepts of
> > programming languages due to its multi-paradigm nature and readily
> > available code of the elementary interpreter.
>
> > Is there an IDE for these lispish-scheming languages ? Is there
> > quality implementation for Eclipse ? Emacs pre-supposes some knowledge
> > of these so that newbie can get stuck. Also, emacs help is not very
> > good.
>
> > Is there a project whereby the internal help of emacs (analogous to
> > its man pages) are being continuously being updated AND shared ? I
> > have never seen updates to the help. Perhaps, the commercial people
> > are doing it, even from the posts of the newsgroups, but the public
> > distros or these newsgroups have NEVER made such an announcement.
>
> > Explanations integrated into the help are more important than the
> > books - its like the wikipedia incorporated into emacs.
>
> > Is there support for the color highlighting of the code by hovering as
> > on this page ?
>
> >http://community.schemewiki.org/?lexical-scope
>
> > Which book/paper has the briefest minimal example of gui design along
> > XML nested/hiearchical elements with event-listeners for lisp/scheme ?
>
> > Thanks
>
> I have used several available LISP systems such as the Gigamonkeys CLISP
> Lispbox, and the Clozure Common LISP.
>
> The system which I currently am using is the Franz Allegro Common LISP.
>   It is a commercial product; and so far I have had no problems with the
> Allegro.  (NB: I am using the Express version.  I feel that the full
> scale commercial license is not exceedingly expensive.)
>
> (Right now I'm studying and working with the exercises in Peter Norvig's
> book Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming.  I have done 16
> of the 25 chapters.)
>
> This is not an advertisement.  If someone wishes to criticize that
> product, or if someone would like to suggest some other equally usable
> implementation, of course please feel free to do so.
>
> regards, Antti J. Ylikoski
> Helsinki, Finland, the E.U.

What was your main reason for picking the Allegro (commercial) as
opposed to one of the open source ones ? Is there anything in this old
norvig book that makes it worth pursuing as a text ?

http://norvig.com/paip.html