Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!gort.rutgers.edu!fawcett From: fawcett@gort.rutgers.edu (Tom Fawcett) Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: lisp environments summary Message-ID: <653@gort.rutgers.edu> Date: Tue, 8-Dec-87 11:52:25 EST Article-I.D.: gort.653 Posted: Tue Dec 8 11:52:25 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 13-Dec-87 11:44:40 EST References: <613@umbc3.UMD.EDU> <325@siemens.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 45 In-reply-to: steve@siemens.UUCP's message of 7 Dec 87 14:46:13 GMT Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.47.23 of Wed Sep 2 1987 on gort.rutgers.edu (berkeley-unix) In article <325@siemens.UUCP> steve@siemens.UUCP (Steve Clark) writes: The correct way to deal with files and storing your lisp code is essentially the way Interlisp does it. Spoken as if opinion were fact. You edit your functions in Lisp, and when you want to save them you write them out to files. Furthermore, a file is treated as a database of definitions - function definitions, record definitions, data definitions, etc. etc., and the system keeps track of what you change and where it belongs and lets you know what files need to be rewritten. (This is the equivalent to Unix "make" for a system where you edit things "in core".) The Symbolics/Explorer/Common Lisp view of files also supports these things, only in a different way. The D-machine way is to require that all changes and manipulations of code be done through Interlisp (rather than in a text editor), and in that way it is, as you say, like a database system for code. The Symbolics/Explorer approach is to give you a powerful set of tools linking the text editor to the lisp environment. Unfortunately, CL has the wrong idea of files & editing somewhat wired into it. As I've said: different, not wrong. Speaking as someone who has worked with both D-machines and Symbolics machines, there are very definite drawbacks to the D-machine point of view. The problems come when you try to do anything even slightly unusual. The D-machine facilities *require* that you do all file/code manipulations through them; if you ever want to do something out of the ordinary, you have quite a hassle, which is exacerbated because all the utilities talk to one another. With the Symbolics/Explorer approach it usually isn't as bad, because the system doesn't demand that you do all operations in a fixed way. I should point out that these differences are the result of different fundamental philosophies. Xerox D-machines have a tradition (from Interlisp-10) of being a complete lisp environment: everything you do should be done from inside the Interlisp system. The Symbolics/Explorer/Common Lisp systems come from an opposite tradition, of having a lisp environment and several external tools, one of which is a text editor. Which you prefer is simply a matter of choice. However, it seems that Common Lisp has adopted the Symbolics/Explorer paradigm, so chances are that it will eventually dominate.