I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a technical prospective?
I'm writing poker room software (client and server) and will be using LW or ACL with the Torque Game Engine (upcoming 2D version). I don't have a big problem with paying royalties to Franz as my software will be several thousand bucks per copy and Franz asks for less than 10%.
My poker server will be very long-running and I'd like the capability to auto-update the poker clients. I also noticed that Franz offers unlimited tech support (Enterprise version only?) whereas I only get a fixed number of incidents with LW. Thanks in advance, Joel
> I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial > development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way > cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a > technical prospective?
> I'm writing poker room software (client and server) and will be using > LW or ACL with the Torque Game Engine (upcoming 2D version). I don't > have a big problem with paying royalties to Franz as my software will > be several thousand bucks per copy and Franz asks for less than 10%.
> My poker server will be very long-running and I'd like the capability > to auto-update the poker clients. I also noticed that Franz offers > unlimited tech support (Enterprise version only?) whereas I only get a > fixed number of incidents with LW. > Thanks in advance, Joel
In a nutshell ACL comes with a large collection of Internett developement libraries and LispWork dosn't. This might be of relevance to you. Lispworks offers CAPI wich is portable. Common Windows (ALC) isn't (last I checked). Both offer CLIM but ACL charges extra. The best way to see the diference is to compare the features offered by both.
The compilers both are mature, complete and give good code. I belive ACL has a edge in optimation. ACL is market leader and has more developers so expect more libraries and faster updates. Personally I go with LW as price matters and I like CAPI.
If in doubt download both trial versions and play with them.
> I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial > development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way > cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a > technical prospective?
I vastly prefer the AllegroCL IDE. That was in 6.2. V7 looks even better.
Lispworks is very popular with a lot of good developers, tho. They are just wrong. :)
> I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial > development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way > cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a > technical prospective?
What did Franz say about Technical Support. From my brief conversations of the past they seemed willing in some cases to provide hands on development support if you are having problems. That is, to assign a person to directly help you work through any problems. Is this still the case?
Franz did not say they would write the code for me but I did not ask them to either. I was told that support is unlimited and that the people providing support are the same people who have been with the company for 10-15 years.
I was told by others that their support is quite responsive and they might even make the ACL source code available if you sign a special agreement.
I suspect that I'll need quite a bit of support to start with. A 10-incident LispWorks support pack would run me $1,800+ (I'm in Europe) every year and assuming a couple of incidents per month I'd have purchase two.
I'm also concerned that LispWorks seems to be just Dave and Martin. They both answer sales and support emails. I assume that they need to spend time developing LispWorks as well as support users of prior versions of LispWorks. This extra support is probably quite a burden to them now that they are free from the mothership.
All and all I'm thinking of betting on Franz and striking a financing deal with them. Once my product is finished I should be able to pay for ACL from the proceeds of just one sale.
[...] jlr> I was told by others that their support is quite responsive jlr> and they might even make the ACL source code available if you jlr> sign a special agreement.
This probably could be negotiated with other vendors too.
jlr> I suspect that I'll need quite a bit of support to start jlr> with. A 10-incident LispWorks support pack would run me jlr> $1,800+ (I'm in Europe) every year and assuming a couple of jlr> incidents per month I'd have purchase two. [...]
I don't know what the other number is so I can't compare, but why do you think you'd need that kind of intense support from the vendor? (I apologize if I missed a posting where you told us this.)
joe...@gmail.com wrote: > Franz did not say they would write the code for me but I did not ask > them to either. I was told that support is unlimited and that the > people providing support are the same people who have been with the > company for 10-15 years.
> I was told by others that their support is quite responsive and they > might even make the ACL source code available if you sign a special > agreement.
Support is, yes, quite responsive. One problem is that they refuse to do anything until you have a reproducible error. Carving that out of a complex application can take hours, when in some cases a knowledgable support person could look at the symptoms and work backwards to the likely problem. They did the latter exactly once (after I went down on my knees) and sure enough they quickly confirmed a bug in AllegroStore (which rocks).
Asking for a reproducible is quite reasonable, but they should not refuse out of hand to try thinking backwards from symptoms when it will take a user hours (days in a couple of hard cases, ISTR) to create a reproducible. If my users tell me something went kaflooey but cannot reproduce it, I still look at the relevant code to see if something jumps out at me.
But that is just one nit. On the whole, tech support is awesome. Same or next-day patches on any flaw we found in their stuff.
> I suspect that I'll need quite a bit of support to start with.
You mean as in "help learning Lisp"? I have no idea how far they go with that (if that is even what you mean); we tried not to use support until we had a prima facie case that their stuff was acting up.
I'm fairly new to CL and I'm developing poker room software. This consists of a client written in CL and using OpenGL, probably on top of the Torque Game Engine or the upcoming Torque 2D (http://www.garagegames.com).
I started with LispWorks and its CAPI cross-platform GUI and had to ask a fair number of questions on the LW user list. I needed to optimize array access, directly access the underlying image formats, etc. to load images into OpenGL textures. The issues were not with OpenGL but with CL optimizations.
I also have the server which by nature is a long-running one. I would like to make the server as high-performance as possible and see if I can support 5,000+ users at the same time. This tells me that I'll have to do a lot of GC tuning and optimizations on the server side. I would also like to load code updates into a running client.
All of the above implies lots of issues small and big and lots of support queries.
P.S. I chose TGE for its network layer, GUI controls that draw over either OpenGL or DirectX and the $100 price.
>> I vastly prefer the AllegroCL IDE. That was in 6.2. V7 looks even better.
>> Lispworks is very popular with a lot of good developers, tho. They are >> just wrong. :)
> Hey Kenny,
> Are you just being an objective reporter or is Franz (aka the White > House) paying for your opinion? Full disclosure seems > necessary these days. :)
"Shill. n. One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle."
So your question is, am I a shill? And you ask because, like others, I believe AllegroCL to have the best IDE?
Have you used both AllegroCL and Lispworks? How much? Were you not impressed with AllegroCL's IDE and other qualities? Where do you see them falling short of Lispworks?
Also, do you like programming? Do you appreciate things which make your life easier? Do you like turning others on to those useful things?
> I need to choose between Franz ACL and LispWorks for commercial > development. Franz seems to be more willing to negotiate but LW is way > cheaper. Why would I go with Franz? Is ACL substantially better from a > technical prospective?
> I'm writing poker room software (client and server) and will be using > LW or ACL with the Torque Game Engine (upcoming 2D version). I don't > have a big problem with paying royalties to Franz as my software will > be several thousand bucks per copy and Franz asks for less than 10%.
> My poker server will be very long-running and I'd like the capability > to auto-update the poker clients. I also noticed that Franz offers > unlimited tech support (Enterprise version only?) whereas I only get a > fixed number of incidents with LW. > Thanks in advance, Joel
Maybe I'm a bit dim but I don't see the business model. You are selling a client server solution. Surly you are not selling client's for 2000$? Do they bet with real money? Who are you selling to? The casino's in Vegas? Is it even legal to offer such a service over the net?
Paolo -- Lisp Propulsion Laboratory log - http://www.paoloamoroso.it/log Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (see also http://clrfi.alu.org): - ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation - CL-PPCRE: regular expressions - UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
> "Shill. n. One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic > gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle."
> So your question is, am I a shill? And you ask because, like others, I > believe AllegroCL to have the best IDE?
No I do not think you are a shill, because I do not think ACL is a swindle. :)
> Have you used both AllegroCL and Lispworks? How much? Were you not > impressed with AllegroCL's IDE and other qualities? Where do you see > them falling short of Lispworks?
I assume you mean the ACL IDE on Windows, as opposed to a Unix. Yes I used it. Not much. LW, lots and lots. ACL's is prettier, its GUI tool is more functional, but... I like things that have rough edges, like, music with errors, people with faults, imperfect weather, .....
ACL's IDE tool got a little in my way, especially when it came to doing GUI's as it treats me a little like a simpleton, too much automation.
> Also, do you like programming? Do you appreciate things which make your > life easier? Do you like turning others on to those useful things?
That is a blanket statement. No I do not like all things which make life easier. Modern tech has contributed to making many fat couch potatoes. Visual Basic enables many to "program" with little understanding of computers. HTML lets many more create web sites, though it has many shortcomings.
Let's just say I appreciate things that make life better, not easier.
/Sorry if this is a duplicate post but google gave me an error on the previous one/
John, I sell the server for 5,000 euro and the client is free.
Poker craze is sweeping over America and a lot of people want to run a poker room of their own, just like http://www.pokeroom.com or http://www.partypoker.com. I have a dim view of the prospects of striking gold by running a poker room but this should not prevent me from selling shovels to the prospectors. And shovels is what I sell, I do not get involved in the digging.
Anyone who wants can buy or lease a gambling license in Canada, Costa Rica or Panama and open shop. A license will run you from 20K per year. Of course it's illegal to run a gambling operation if you are a US citizen.
I have a number of people lined up to buy my software once it's done (within a couple of months). I hope to find a small niche and dominate it. Ease of customization and pluggable GUI "widgets" such as a video feed might be it. Lisp lets me customize the software anyway I want for my customers and do so in a short period of time. Other than this, poker room software usually sells for 30-500K plus sizeable percentage of revenue.
>> "Shill. n. One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic >> gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle."
>> So your question is, am I a shill? And you ask because, like others, I >> believe AllegroCL to have the best IDE?
> No I do not think you are a shill, because I do not think ACL is a > swindle. :)
So my enthusiasm for the product is plausible. What then makes you question my integrity? Go back to the specific features I have praised and explain how that praise was false or excessive. This should be to a degree sufficient to make you suspect the implausible prospect of someone paying me to hang out on c.l.l. and hawk their wares.
Or is Xanalys... no, I do not want to sink to your level. :)
>> Have you used both AllegroCL and Lispworks? How much? Were you not >> impressed with AllegroCL's IDE and other qualities? Where do you see >> them falling short of Lispworks?
> I assume you mean the ACL IDE on Windows, as opposed > to a Unix. Yes I used it. Not much. LW, lots and lots. > ACL's is prettier, its GUI tool is more functional, but... > I like things that have rough edges, like, music with errors, > people with faults, imperfect weather, .....
> ACL's IDE tool got a little in my way, especially when > it came to doing GUI's as it treats me a little like > a simpleton, too much automation.
Dude, that is not their IDE, that is their GUI builder. I do not use it, I build my own GUIs.
Anyway, I believe you screwed up. The GUI builder would be for someone with no plans for intense GUI development. If you are not a simpleton, just code CG directly.
>> Also, do you like programming? Do you appreciate things which make >> your life easier? Do you like turning others on to those useful things?
> That is a blanket statement. No I do not like all things which make > life easier. Modern tech has contributed to making many > fat couch potatoes. Visual Basic enables many to "program" with > little understanding of computers. HTML lets many more create > web sites, though it has many shortcomings.
You think VB makes programming easier? have you ever used VB seriously? Are you being paid by Microsoft to... oops. :) VB is like any 4GL: deceptive ease of simple pet tricks not scaling when used in anger.
Getting back to your question about my integrity and that of Franz and all their employees... why would you believe my answer? :) Anyway, here it is:
Neither. :) My personal opinion is biased by greater use of AllegroCL than Lispworks, which I try to emphasize whenever I praise ACL over LW.
On 3 Feb 2005 11:22:49 -0800, <joe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> All and all I'm thinking of betting on Franz and striking a financing > deal with them. Once my product is finished I should be able to pay for > ACL from the proceeds of just one sale.
Ah, sounds like no market research whatsoever, and you expect others to finance your way up. Better go with the demos and work on your market, the lisp choice is immaterial without a set of buyers.
Any serious buyer believing that he would receive great benefit from a project will make progress payments.
-- Everyman has three hearts; one to show the world, one to show friends, and one only he knows.
> So my enthusiasm for the product is plausible. What then makes you > question my integrity? Go back to the specific features I have praised > and explain how that praise was false or excessive. This should be to a > degree sufficient to make you suspect the implausible prospect of > someone paying me to hang out on c.l.l. and hawk their wares.
Your original post sounded so much like George Bush (I'm right you're not) that I could not resist. Then with the connection to the White House buying journalists... :)
> > Are you just being an objective reporter or is Franz (aka the White > > House) paying for your opinion? Full disclosure seems > > necessary these days. :)
> So your question is, am I a shill?
I notice you didn't actually *answer* the question :-)
-- -trent All programs are poems, it's just that not all programmers are poets. -- Jonathan Guthrie
>>>Are you just being an objective reporter or is Franz (aka the White >>>House) paying for your opinion? Full disclosure seems >>>necessary these days. :)
>>So your question is, am I a shill?
> I notice you didn't actually *answer* the question :-)
Drives ya crazy, doesn't it? :) I was just trying to sucker someone into pointing out that I had not answered it. I guess you win. Have a seat.
Never let the meatheads set the debate. I chose to make the question itself the object of inquiry. It was a bullsh*t question, insulting to myself and Franz and most Franz employees. The question did not make sense, and flew in the face of the very simple fact that no one has ever doubted that Franz has a fine IDE, and that many besides myself consider it the Cadillac of Lisps. I guess you missed some of the traffic, btw, or you would have understood that. And seen the answer to the question: neither.
But me and Wade are old c.l.l. buddies and he did his best to make up by saying he simply confused me with Dubbya. Now I am really pissed off...
GP Lisper, I have done my bit of market research and I do have someone funding my development, i.e. paying for the software license upfront. I also released the old version of the product as open source back in August (http://projects.sourceforge.net/openpoker).
That was product is written in Delphi and cannot be used in production, it's architecture is crap and it's impossible to debug fully. I decided to rewrite it in Lisp last year and do have a few people lined up to buy it.
The old Delphi poker cost the client over 125K to develop /paid to me/ and I paid about 50K to some folks in Syberia. The project came to a halt at 100K and I got to own in for pardoning the balance. That was all in 2001 when the going was still good :-).
Of course none of this has to do with the technical or other merits of ACL over LispWorks or vise versa.
> But me and Wade are old c.l.l. buddies and he did his best to make up by > saying he simply confused me with Dubbya. Now I am really pissed off...
Good. I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon - strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey to the Dark Side will be complete!
I thought it would be worth to describe my experience so far...
I develop on a PowerBook G4 15" with the latest Mac OSX and I totally love it. I would have ditched my PC long time ago if it were not for delivering Windows executables. My girlfriend uses it now for email and solitaire.
LispWorks is good for Mac development as it has not only CAPI but also the Objective C bindings. This is a boon if you want to develop Cocoa apps. CAPI is cross-platform and will use Cocoa widgets on the Mac or the native widgets on Windows, etc. Using the Objective C bridge you can do anything you want with Cocoa while working in the comfort of the REPL or the IDE.
LispWorks also costs far less than ACL but... LW does not create shared libraries on any platforms but Windows and this feature is very important to me. ACL can create shared libraries on all platforms but HP-UX 11. This means you can package your Lisp logic and call it from any C or C++ app. SDL and Windows have their own main and so does the Torque Game Engine. The platform-specific main does initializations and event handling. For example, Quartz and Cocoa need to be initialized on the Mac.
LispWorks own the main and does not create shared libraries so you are stuck with loading C/C++ code into LispWorks and not vise versa. So you cannot just use SDL with LispWorks on the Mac unless you take a big gun and shoot yourself. Well, not literally but you do need to jump through loops and hoops to separate the Quartz/Cocoa initialization code into some shared library that you can load, etc. It's a huge pain in the rear! Other than that it boils down to tech support for me.
I found LW tech support slow to respond during my eval period. I needed to go beyond CAPI to get a handle on the raw image bytes and use them to load OpenGL textures. Apparently LW uses NSImage on OSX and something else on Windows. I needed to quickly combine image and mask stored in separate files to set the alpha channel.
This basically amounted to a memcopy with a twist in that I needed to expand a 3 byte per pixel array into a 4 byte per pixel array and then populate every fourth byte from yet another array. This was slow in Lisp so I asked LW for help and they basically told me to use the CAPI API. They told me this in a couple of days, I think, maybe more.
I had to dig into it myself, figure out how to get to the raw bytes of the NSImage bitmap, etc. I did not look forward to doing this on Windows so I asked LW a very pointed question regarding Windows. I got an answer 2-3 days later but it was not very detailed, although it did point me in the right direction. The second email did, as it took two to get where I wanted. Last but not least LW charges for support and sells incident packs. A 10 pack is something like $1000 for me.
Franz does not charge per incident and every time I asked a question they came back with a very detailed answer within a few hours. I was able to get a few detailed answers from them in a single day. Finally, when I asked a broad sort of an answer they called me (I'm in Spain), had an hour-long chat with me on the phone and explained to me everything in detail.
I tend to get stuck in very non-obvious places so support is very important to me. I give two thumbs up to Franz for their support and actually think it's worth all the extra money!
> I tend to get stuck in very non-obvious places so support is very > important to me. I give two thumbs up to Franz for their support and > actually think it's worth all the extra money!
> LispWorks also costs far less than ACL but... LW does not create shared > libraries on any platforms but Windows and this feature is very > important to me. ACL can create shared libraries on all platforms but > HP-UX 11. This means you can package your Lisp logic and call it from > any C or C++ app. SDL and Windows have their own main and so does the > Torque Game Engine. The platform-specific main does initializations and > event handling. For example, Quartz and Cocoa need to be initialized on > the Mac.
You sound like you want an embedded CL to handle game logic, called from the main game engine. You already mentioned ECL in a previous post. I also assume one could also use clisp as an embeddable CL (you do get the source code). Maybe someone has already done something like this with the torque game engine? Personally this is the way I would go. In the distant past I embedded Scheme->C into a C++ app, worked just fine. I assume the same for ECL or Clisp.
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