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Date:      Wed, 20 Nov 1996 09:02:23 +0100 (MET)
From:      Martin Cracauer <cracauer@cons.org>
To:        Bakul Shah <bakul@plexuscom.com>
Cc:        Martin Cracauer <cracauer@cons.org>, freebsd-ports@freebsd.org, rpw3@sgi.com
Subject:   Re: Interest in large collection of Lisp/Scheme implementations? 
Message-ID:  <199611200802.JAA02154@knight.cons.org>
In-Reply-To: <199611191422.JAA03882@chai.plexuscom.com>
References:  <199611190957.KAA29674@knight.cons.org> <199611191422.JAA03882@chai.plexuscom.com>

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Bakul Shah writes:
> > I'm talking about more than just compiling these packages. I plan to
> > make Common Lisp/Scheme libraries availiable for as many
> > implementations as possible.
> 
> I hope the `ported' environment is not too different from what
> one gets from `just compiling' these packages.

Of course not. The most visible changes would be things like a
modified search path to include a common directory and a modified
directory structure to meet FreeBSD's demands.

[...]
> [Since you asked for feedback] IMHO, what is would be more useful is
> a collection of separate packages useful for doing mundane things
> (without having to use a full Lisp/Scheme environment ala
> emacs/elisp and where one doesn't need to allocate 8Mbytes or more
> of VM just to print hello world or scan through mail messages or
> edit a file or count words in a file).  Packages for things like:
>     syscall interface
>     network programming
>     text processing: editing, searching, transforming etc.
>     shell programming
>     mail processing
>     HTML processing
> and also more complex things like:
>     X windows interface
>     a generic C/C++ interface to use any C/C++ library
>     support for dynamic loading/unloading of libraries

Well, I could write for hours about these issues, but I have try to
keep it on topic for this mailing list.

The points you list are not easy to solve, most of them require that
you choose just the one right implementation. I think the right way to
attack the problem is to make a collection of implementation
availiable in a form that everyone can try many implementations
without spending too much time in installing them. For now, people
usually stay with one of the first implementations they happen to
install.

That is exactly what I try to do: I want people to be able to try an
implementation just by typing its name and FreeBSD's port collection
is the right vehicle to do so (yes, I like FreeBSD for other reasons,
too :-).

Martin
-- 
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Martin Cracauer <cracauer@cons.org> http://www.cons.org/cracauer
  cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (batched, preferred for large mails)
  Tel.: (daytime) +4940 41478712 (sometimes hacker's daytime :-)
  Tel.: (private) +4940 5221829 Fax.: (private) +4940 5228536
  Paper: (private) Waldstrasse 200, 22846 Norderstedt, Germany



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