Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!news.ppp.de!news.Hanse.DE!wavehh.hanse.de!cracauer
From: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer)
Subject: Re: Suggestion for Lisp development system?
Message-ID: <1995Jun7.082752.25747@wavehh.hanse.de>
Organization: The Internet
References: <3r2b0b$6r5@Radon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 95 08:27:52 GMT
Lines: 47

geddis@CS.Stanford.EDU (Don Geddis) writes:

>I'm about to purchase a new hardware platform to do Lisp development,
>specifically for an application involving databases and the world wide
>web.  Out of habit (years of programming on workstations), I've been
>leaning toward a Sun (perhaps a Voyager?) and Franz Allegro lisp.

>It's come to my attention that perhaps I should re-evaluate the possibilities.
>The overwhelming success of the PC world makes me wonder whether I should
>consider an environment there, but I don't know much about it.  Do any of
>you have suggestions?  I'd much prefer Unix to Windows, but perhaps Windows 95
>or Windows NT (or NeXTStep or Sun Solaris?) on a PC box is feasible.

>Do any of these systems have good Lisp development environments?  I know that
>Pentiums can compete with workstation power (or beat it, in many cases).
>But I'm under the impression that the overall systems can't come close to
>a workstation system for software development.  Is this still true, or am
>I way behind the times?

A Pentium has enormous power for the money. It is not true anymore
that the overall system stops the show of the CPU. The lastest Pentium
chipsets (Triton) has more meory bandwith than most workstations, PCI
with NCR-810 SCSI Controllers and modern EThernet card drivers are as
fast as the workstation equipment (as long as you get drivers).

However, there is no Common Lisp Compiler that generates native Code
on UNIX, only a via-C-Compiler (GNU Common Lisp) that doesn't optimize
as good as CMU-CL.

If you need power for Lisp, you're probably better off using CMU-CL on
a little SPARCstation or HP 712/60 than by a pentium with gcl. For
Lisp, make sure to get a machine with a real cache, not one of those
internal-cache-only systems.

Additionally, the commercial Common Lisp Systems doesn't run on any
intel-based machines, at least not the newer versions. If you can buy
Lispworks or Allegro, that is probably the best Solution.

Allegro CL/PC seems nice, but I would think twice about using
Windows. Of course, if Lisp is the *only* thing you want to do,
Windows as a loader for CL/PC may be acceptable.

Martin
-- 
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Martin Cracauer <cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de>. No NeXTMail, please.
 Norderstedt/Hamburg, Germany. Fax +49 40 522 85 36. This is a 
 private address. At (netless) work programming in data analysis.
