Re: CLOS Learning Examples

[Johann Petrak <johann@mail4.ai.univie.ac.at>]

> [Forwarded from Ray Liere <lierer@mail.CS.ORST.EDU>; there seem to be
> mailing-list problems.]
> 
> I am in the process of learning CLOS ... and the concepts of object-oriented
> programming in general. It would be helpful to have samples of "good CLOS
> code" to learn from. Most books I have read so far use quite large examples.
> I would find smaller examples helpful initially -- I am aware of the
> CLOS code available at nervous.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/lispers/clos
> (ref. lisp faq part 5).
> 
> Does anyone know of other resources that I might be able to obtain -- such
> as code for the 8-queens problem, graph coloring, etc.?

I have only recently learned CLOS myself, but I think that small programs
cannot demonstrate the benefits and the "style" of CLOS programming
properly. You have to have a need for objects and inheritance to 
use CLOS properly. With the 8-queens problem I don't see much of such
a need.

The book Sonya E. Keene, "Object-Oriented Programming in COMMON LISP"
(Addison-Wesley, 1989) has example code for very small problems and
only touches the very basic CLOS features. The 3d edition of 
P.H. Winston and B.K.P. Horn, "LISP" (Addison-Wesley, 1989) uses 
CLOS for some very small classic AI problems (blocks world etc.)

Just my ATS 0.02, though... comments welcome!

Johann Petrak                            Email: johann@ai.univie.ac.at
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