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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Comparing productivity: LisP against C++ (was Re: Reference Counting)
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Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 16:58:08 GMT
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In article <3fdunb$lr8@news.panix.com> Viktor Yurkovsky <n4mation@panix.com> writes:
>Forgive me for butting in into the middle of a discussion, but I would
>like to voice a couple of opinions.

>2. It is the compile time that REALLY MATTERS.
>   ------------------------------------------
>
>My own languages featured instant compilation.  I got really spoiled.
>Most people don't realize how much time they are wasting.  For starters,
>I am working on a project that at this point requires about a minute
>to compile/link.  I do it about 60 times a day.  That is 1 hour a day,
>300 hours a year or at least a MONTH of work out of the year.
>
>That's just the start.  Working with an interpreter or an instant
>compiler is a natural way of doing things.  I juggle dozens of variables
>and functions in my head.  If the compile is not noticeable (under 1/2
>second), I can keep working.  If I wait 1 minute, my mind goes elsewhere
>and I find that it takes a minute or two to get back into the flow of
>things.  That is another 2 MONTHS out of the year.
>
>Interestingly enough, I find the breakeven point around 1 second.
>Anything much longer than that is REALLY annoying to me.

I don't know about the 1 second part, but you might want to try
PopLog.  It's a Pop-11 + Prolog + Common Lisp + (I think) ML
system (not all of which has to be there at once) that has a
fairly fast compiler.  There's no "file compiler".  Instead,
code is always compiled as it's loaded in.

I used it for Common Lisp development for one project when I got
annoyed at how long it was taking the "delivery" Common Lisp to
compile.  I think it's still a CLtL 1 Common Lisp, though.

-- jeff
