Re: Future Plans for MCL

[John_Gersh@aplmail.jhuapl.edu (John Gersh)]

I'd also like express my deep disappointment with Apple's decision to
abandon continued development of Macintosh Common Lisp. MCL is one of the
best development environments around, bar none; it is _the_ best one that
I've seen for research and rapid prototyping on any platform. But, like any
software product, if it does not progress, it will die.

Hardware purchasing decisions in which I've participated, like those of
many others, have been influenced by the availability of MCL. A
Quadra-based cognitive science lab here exists in that form, at least in
part, because of MCL's utility for modeling, prototyping, and
experimentation. High-visibility research work has been accomplished here
using MCL, as it has been at other institutions.

I would also, like some others, be willing to pay substantially more for an
MCL with more features and, eventually, in native PowerPC form.

It is _extremely_ unfortunate for Apple to discontinue MCL development;
unfortunate for Apple, unfortunate for its customers. Considering the
dollar value of MCL sales alone in making this decision was a serious
mistake, as the world-wide outcry that the decision has generated makes
clear.

MCL is not just a Common Lisp implementation of the highest quality. Its
seamless Common Lisp Object System access to the Mac user interface and
event structure makes it unsurpassed for R&D and prototyping. It's possible
that a Dylan implementation _might_ provide something like that in the
future, but that's a conjecture, and is implementation-dependent. MCL
already does the job, and it will be sad indeed if it cannot continue to do
so using all the power that Apple touts from its newest hardware. Apple
will lose visibility in important domains; it will lose hardware sales; it
will lose the potential of expanded MCL sales.



=== John R. Gersh                John_Gersh@aplmail.jhuapl.edu           
=== The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
=== Laurel, MD 20723                           +1(301)953-5503
===                   My opinions, not APL's!