At 08:53 AM 6/10/97 -0500, Allan Dobbins wrote:
>I found Ken Forbus' statement that he finds himself more productive in most
>respects with ACLPC than he was with a Symbolics machine astonishing.  Now
>Roy Turner has made a similar assertion concerning ACL 4.3.  I used ACL on a
>Unix platform for a few years (a few years ago) and found it usable but
>far from a LISPM in capability.  Perhaps I need an update.  Does ACL now
allow
>incremental compilation?  What about its debugging facilities?  Have these
>improved dramatically?

Incremental compilation, decent debugger (one area that needs improvement),
reasonable trace/profile utilities, are all there.  Once you wrap your head
around it, programming interfaces with widgets is much simpler than using
the native Symbolics system or CLIM.  And the speed is certainly there,
although it, too could use a boost.  (3.0.2, like earlier versions, still
does number consing
even if you give it enough declarations where it shouldn't have to.  We are
encouraged by reports that the next version will fix this.)  In addition to
being useful on desktops, it runs just fine on today's notebooks, so you
can get work done anywhere.  Major, major win.

=========================================
Prof. Kenneth D. Forbus
Qualitative Reasoning Group
The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Northwestern University
1890 Maple Avenue
Evanston, Illinois, 60201, USA

email: <ils.nwu.edu at forbus>
voice: (847) 491-7699
fax: (847) 491-5258
http://www.qrg.ils.nwu.edu/
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