Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!mike From: mike@ists.yorku.ca (Mike Clarkson) Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: Re: Portability problem with gnu-emacs Summary: It's like Franz and MacLisp Message-ID: <213@ists> Date: 26 Sep 88 04:40:08 GMT Article-I.D.: ists.213 References: <441@myab.se> <394@augean.OZ> <305@talos.UUCP> <1252@titan.SW.MCC.COM> <28474@think.UUCP> Sender: news@ists Lines: 37 In article <28474@think.UUCP>, rlk@think.com (Robert Krawitz) writes: > In article <1252@titan.SW.MCC.COM>, janssen@titan (Bill Janssen) writes: > ]In article <305@talos.UUCP>, kjones@talos (Kyle Jones) writes: > ]>GNU Emacs Lisp is clearly less complex than full Common Lisp... > ]"Clearly". uh-huh. > > The problem is that it's missing a fair number of useful features, and > there are a few major problems mostly with the reader (lack of reader > macros, only dynamic scoping, and case sEnSiTiViTy). Other than that, > it's quite powerful indeed, and it doesn't seem a lot "simpler" > conceptually. Emacs Lisp is very MacLisp'ish, as you would expect as RMS was one of the original MacLispers. It therefore shares a lot in common with Franz Lisp, which was built to run a large MacLisp program (MACSYMA). There is a lot of similarities in design between Franz and Emacs Lisp, particularly the C-code kernel, followed by load and dump. However, Franz has a real compiler, that even by today's standards is quite fast. A great fantasy of mine has always been to merge Emacs into Franz. This would give a much fuller and better performing lisp, that had a real compiler. It might also help keep some (PD) development going on Franz. There are disadvantages to large monlithic images supporting two different functions, but both Franz and Emacs have autoloading, so the combined system need not be to big. There would be great gains in GC speed and speed of compiled code, not to mention things like floating point numbers, and a foreign function interface. Sigh... sometime when I have a spare year just for hacking... Mike Clarkson mike@ists.UUCP Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science mike@ists.yorku.ca York University, North York, Ontario, uunet!mnetor!yunexus!ists!mike CANADA M3J 1P3 +1 (416) 736-5611