Re: Public or Shareware LISP Programs

[Steve Strassmann <straz@cambridge.apple.com>]

>I have MCL 2.01b and am in the process of learning LISP.  I have been working 
>through a introductory textbook on LISP and plan to also work through "Object 
>Oriented Programming in LISP" by Sonja Keene.
>
>I am looking for examples of large LISP programs and a utility to diagram CLOS
>class hierarchies.  I noticed that the "Getting Started with Macintosh Common 
>Lisp" manual mentions that "...extensions, third-party code, and patches..." 
>are available for downloading from this bulletin board.  How can I get a 
>directory of what is available?  Can I download using Compuserve's Internet 
>Gateway?  Are there other sources of public domain MCL LISP code?  Can I use 
>standard virus detection software on LISP code that I download?  

These files are available on the Internet from cambridge.apple.com,
using the file transfer protocol (FTP), and they're in the 
/pub/MCL2/contrib directory. You'll need to ask a Compuserve expert 
whether their gateway will let you transfer files; I believe it only 
works for email.

There's many other sources for lisp code around the Internet, but if
you don't have ftp access, this won't help you much. I'm in the process 
of assembling a collection of contributed lisp code to include on a 
CD-ROM that we will ship with MCL 2.0. 

As for standard virus detectors, they're pretty incapable of detecting
anything written in lisp. Fortunately, the risk of a nasty lurking
in any lisp code you might download is practically (dare I say it) nil.
There are no known cases of lisp viruses that are just "out there"
waiting to infect your machine. They just don't spread well, they're
pretty easy to stomp out, and frankly, I credit lisp hackers with
the intelligence to restrain self-modifying code to the confines of their
own machines.