Subject: Re: Free implementations of ANSI (CLtL2) Common Lisp for Windows
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 1999/01/23
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3126049164241844@naggum.no>

* paul.moore@uk.origin-it.com (Paul Moore)
| Thanks for the pointers - I've seen both.  Both have limitations on heap
| size (unspecified how much, but I don't want to invest time & effort to
| find that I can't handle realistic amounts of data) and neither support
| building standalone applications (Franz has no compiler, which I'd really
| like to have, and Harlequin says the free version "does not support
| application delivery".

  Franz Inc Allegro CL 5.0 Lite offering has no _file_ compiler, but of
  course it has a compiler.  Windows people tend to rip other people off
  and pirate commercial software and such, so I see very valid reasons why
  vendors don't want to give away any ability that they would want to pay
  for if they were legitimate users.  the Unix world is very different,
  with the Linux world somewhere in between, with a strong desire to test
  things out for real without going through a lot of hassle.  as has been
  suggested, switch to Linux.

  btw, so-called standalone applications aren't.

| I suppose this boils down to the fact that I don't want a "cut down"
| version of a commercial product - if I didn't notice the limitations, it
| wouldn't make me want to buy the full product (and I don't anticipate
| buying any Lisp, for the sort of things I'd do it wouldn't be a good
| investment...)

  if you didn't notice the limitations, what would the difference beween
  what you want and what you get be?  I don't get it.  (I presume you want
  this for non-commercial use -- if you want to sell stuff, there are less
  comfortable limitations on free software than on commercial software.)
  if you want a full system, it doesn't cost a noticeable chunk of money,
  either.

#:Erik
-- 
  SIGTHTBABW: a signal sent from Unix to its programmers at random
  intervals to make them remember that There Has To Be A Better Way.