Poor Sun timings, as competition...

[barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)]

    Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 10:08:15 -0400
    From: barr@bbn.com (Hunter Barr)

       Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 16:32 EDT
       From: Barry Margolin <barmar@think.com>
    ...
       The Compile System took about 14 minutes.  Compiling and loading it on a
       Sun 4/280 running Sun Common Lisp 3.0.1 takes about 4 CPU minutes with
       the developmentc compiler and 16 CPU minutes with the production
       compiler (wall times were about 5.5 minutes and 19 minutes).  And on the
       3630 at SLUG it took over 40 minutes.  So, if you're in a heavy
       edit-compile-run cycle the Sun wins.
    ...

    Excuse me, but aren't you still ending up with a comparison of
    Symbolics' obsolete model (3630) with Sun4s?  I think you intended
    this message to compare the Symbolics XL1200 with the Sun4.  

The sentence immediately before the first one in your quote above was,
"I brought a tape containing the source to our *Lisp Simulator, and
compiled and loaded it on the XL1200 in the demo room."  The 14 minute
time was on the XL1200.  It took 40 minutes on the 3630.

    Also, if you are most interested in "a heavy edit-compile-run cycle",
    then perhaps you could comment on how well the Sun development
    environment supports a programmer spoiled by Genera.  My opinion is
    that the Suns are quite usable, but still have a long way to go to be
    in the same league as Genera.

Well, I don't care for the Sun as a development environment, but many of
our developers get along pretty well.  Most of the Lispm users here had
been using them since about release 4 or 5, so their work habits didn't
include use of presentations; therefore, they don't miss the ability to
click on everything in sight.  GNU Emacs is as good an editor as Zmacs,
and we have meta-dot, c-sh-E, c-sh-C, c-sh-M, c-sh-A all implemented in
GNU Emacs (by running Lisp in a subprocess (or on another network host)
with its I/O connected to an Emacs buffer).  And running Lisp in an
Emacs buffer also provides a history mechanism.

                                                barmar