Re: The cost of CLIM and its future

• To: lgm@iexist.att.com, welch@cis.ohio-state.edu
• Subject: Re: The cost of CLIM and its future
• From: Scott McKay <SWM@stony-brook.scrc.symbolics.com>
• Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1992 11:09-0400
• Cc: clim@BBN.COM
• In-Reply-To: <19920918012030.0.LGM@NSPP11.iexist.att.com>

    Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1992 21:20 EDT
    From: "Lawrence G. Mayka" <lgm@iexist.att.com>

	Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1992 12:26 CDT
	From: Arun Welch <welch@cis.ohio-state.edu>

	> I know we can't expect sympathy, but can we get suggestions?  Can you
	> suggest something on the market which addresses the Symbolics -> MCL
	> -> Lucid -> Franz -> Harlequin portability issue?  

	In the current state, it's locked into those 5 companies. What about -> Ibuki
	-> Gold Hill -> Top Level  -> Venue -> etc. *That's* my point. It's effectively
	raised the entry point into the Lisp market by a couple of manyears of effort.

I can only answer the technical questions here.

    How are CL vendors beyond the Five locked out of CLIM?  

I don't know anything about this.
							    
							    Do the Five
    charge too much for a source license?  
					   
I don't know anything about this.

					   Does it contain too much
    platform-specific code?  
			     
Except for the back-ends, most of the CLIM source code is quite
portable.  There are hardly any read-time conditionals in the CLIM
source beyond the first few bootstrapping files.

			     Does it require too much platform-specific
    optimization for acceptable performance?  

At least Symbolics, Franz, and Lucid all ended up doing improvements in
their Lisp compilers and CLOS implementations in order to support CLIM.
This is as it should be: now those Lisp implementations are better for
everybody, not just for CLIM.

The port-specific back-ends can require a substantial amount of work,
but that is to be expected.
					      
					      Or is it simply too big for a
    smaller CL vendor to support?  
				   
That certainly is a reasonable objection.  Also, CLIM itself is a (too)
large program that can be a burden to small machines.  On the other
hand, CLIM on newer PCs and Macintoshes is pretty darned good.

				   I'd like to understand this issue better
    because I agree that to be a genuine "de facto standard," CLIM should be
    a workable option for the smaller CL vendors as well as the larger ones.
    At LUV '92, even Sapiens Software (of $99 Star Sapphire CL fame) was
    interested in offering CLIM, but I don't know whether the Five responded
    welcomingly or not.

No idea.

0,,

• Re: The cost of CLIM and its future
• From: "Lawrence G. Mayka" <lgm@iexist.att.com>

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