Re: John's flame

[language@skdad.usask.ca]

> MCL is not buggy!  I have a lot of code and I have never encountered a
> significant bug.  In fact I think MCL is the only application I have
> ever used this extensively in which I have never made it eat bits.
> 
> That the MCL team provides patches is not a sign of buggy software it
> is a sign of excellent customer support.  I have never needed any of those
> patches.
 
true,  it's not terribly buggy.. and the support is commendable
 
> MCL is not clumsy.  It is by far the sweetest of the Lisp implementations
> I use.  It is a lot smaller then the rest.  Only the real Lisp Machines
> have better debuggers.
> 
> MCL applications are not big when compared to other Lisp environments,
> they are only big compared to simpler programming languages.
 
Are you saying,  the size problem is excusable because on other lisp
environments are bigger?  possibly you've noticed the recent discussion
about how mcl application size can be reduced?  I believe the geist
of the conversation has been, 'yes,  we can do it,  but it's not a priority'.
 
I come from the c++ world and, as a student, the $500 I paid for MCL was
a significant investment in the hopes that I would be able to create
distributable software.  However,  this I cannot do...  most people
who I sell to: (a) don't have 4 meg machines,  (b) don't want 2 meg
programs filling up their hd, (c) can't figure out how to install
progams broken into two halves on two floppy disks,  and (d) don't
want to hear any excuses for any of the above.
 
> Priorities are not promises!  When an employee of a vendor states a
> priority he is not making a promise.  Priorities should evolve and
> push and pull against other priorities.  For example keeping MCL in
> synch. with the Common Lisp Standard, and the Macintosh toolbox is
> presumably a priority too.  Both of those are more than twice the size
> today.
 
I never said it was a promise.  perhaps you read that into the text.
However, it is misleading (intentionally) to state that something
of significant concern to someone is a priority, implying that work is
being done about it, when infact none is being done at all.
 
> Even from outside of Apple you can see that they care deeply about
> this issue.  The entire Dylan effort is but one example of that.
 
Well,  that's great,  but Dylan isn't Lisp.
 
> Finally.  The mother ship idea was not intended to divert attention
> away from a discussion of where MCL should go.  It was intended as a
> cheap (do it today) solution to the problem that MCL hackers have:
> "I can't distribute this little toy I just built."
 
wellll excuse me,  but in the 'real world' people actually do sell
the programs they write and these are legitimate concerns.
Is the cheap (do it today) solution the only one we're going to get?
 
  -john