Re: A Dylan implemented on Common Lisp

[eliot@cs.umass.edu (CHRISTOPHER ELIOT)]

In article <199503111711.MAA14496@digitool.com> Christopher.Young@ISL1.RI.CMU.EDU writes:
>>Fortunately, there are alternatives for those who like the
>>productivity and the parentheses but can't stand the size.
[...]

As far as I am concerned, the question of the size of a Lisp application
was relevent a few years ago, but certainly won't be relevent a few
years from now.

Quicken takes over 2400K, my Lisp applications are all smaller than that.
The entire quicken folder uses 3000K, Color It! (a graphic utility)
has 2500K in the folder. My Word folder is 6600K, Think C needs
over 10000K. I've seen games that need 4 of 5 meg.

If disk space was really such a big isues, then why are QuickTime
and HyperCard so popular? It seems to me that the complaints about
Lisp are based entirely upon evaluations made in the 1960s
and do not in any way reflect modern technology.

>Quite frankly, I believe it is quite possible to create a sophisticated
>run time app in MCL. 

That's what we do in our lab.

-Chris Eliot
Umass/Amherst

>All this dissing of MCL is becoming a sort of turn
>off for me. If there is any language which is perfect, I have yet to hear
>of it. Dylan may be better, sure, but I don't know enough about it and
>how many platforms it runs on to want to use it right now, despite Scott's
>credentials.
>
>A lot of problems people have are more due to their not programming efficiently
>or using expensive, cumbersome add-ons than to CL or MCL itself.
>
>Finally, I would like to see a response from Digitool about the claims
>the one guy is making against them versus Franz. I will post a summary soon
>(in the next few days) of responses I received re: porting to Windows, but
>most were negative towards Franz. I'm pretty happy with MCL myself, what with
>the libraries available and all, though I do look forward to 3.0. I also
>think Franz is pretty overpriced just from what I've read, but I'm still
>exploring this area.
>
>				-- Chris