Subject: Re: Reasons to choose CLISP over other free implementations
From: rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock)
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:24:20 -0600
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <bNydnZeKKOZ5Ts3anZ2dnUVZ_ruqnZ2d@speakeasy.net>
Gregory W Bennett <gwbennet@likelihood.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
+---------------
| A group of us has a project which originated on Lisp Machines
| but has since been ported to MacLisp and Allegro. ... emphasis
| is on graphical displays ... The project is heavily object-oriented
| so a fast CLOS is all but essential as is a fast graphics package.
| 
| We would like to move this to the Linux world and a non-commercial
| implementation so we have followed the recent discussion of CLISP
| and/vs other free implementations with interest. We would be interested
| to hear views on graphics packages for static and dynamic graphics...
+---------------

1. My first coding in CL[1] was for a database-backed web app,
   and I initially used both CLISP & CMUCL, for quite a while,
   but then settled on CMUCL because the compiled code for my
   app was just *so* much faster, and also because the green
   threads in CMUCL[2] were a very good match to my app. All
   the initial development was done on FreeBSD 2.2.6, but was
   later moved to FreeBSD 4.3, 4.6, 4.10, and now 6.2 with no
   problems whatsoever.[3] Furthermore, the porting of the app
   to Linux 2.4.21-40.EL (RH) was nearly as seamless, as was moving
   to Linux 2.6.7 and then 2.6.20, and it's still running on all
   those platforms. [Well, except FBSD 2.2.26 -- that machine died.]
   So I clearly like CMUCL, on x86 platforms at least.

2. If you going to be doing lots of motion graphics, some GUI
   that binds to OpenGL at the bottom would be nice, such as
   Ken Tilton's "Cello" over GLUT [Google for it], which also
   would get you "Cells" [ditto] included, for dynamic constraint
   programming.

In any case, there are *lot* of CL implementations that run on
Linux these days and *lots* of GUI packages available. Start here:

    http://www.cliki.net/Common%20Lisp%20implementation
    http://www.cliki.net/Graphics%20Toolkit
    http://www.cliki.net/Graphics%20Library


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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