Should there be a dominant Lisp Medley projects are written in?

[pixel...@gmail.com]

As I start tinkering and learning, I'm wondering if there is a preference for in Lisp dialect when making new projects.

I imagine historic projects should stay in their dialect of origin, but what about adding a new tool from scratch? I think InterLisp is worth keeping but I can also see some of the utility of Common Lisp's language features.

Also, I'm not sure about the difference between Xerox Common Lisp and Common Lisp menu options. (I'm guessing the second pushes a bit towards CLTL2 as it gets updates)

As a simple new user of the system, it seems to be "dealer's choice" when it comes to what I do but is there a cultural underpinning to prefer InterLisp? I've had a hunch to try writing a small GUI system for personal enjoyment I'd need time to study LOOPS (seems to have worked out for "Truckin'" yet the allure of CLOS calls me. :)

[Paolo Amoroso]

I'm using both Interlisp and Common Lisp for new projects. This is also what I recommend for new users as it allows you to explore Medley in more breadth as a side effect. In general I'd say both Interlisp and Common Lisp are first class citizens on Medley.

Xerox Common Lisp is mostly CltL1 + CLOS + the condition system + LOOP. There's a huge patch to bring it closer to CLtL2 but updating and merging it is quite a lot of work for experienced developers. And the patch likely diverged from the mainline since it was submitted.

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[Herb Jellinek]

Good questions, worthy of including in the forthcoming Medley Primer.

I write new code using Interlisp-D and Common Lisp idioms.  You can mix IL: and CL: functions and variables freely.

The menu options under EXEC choose combinations of *PACKAGE* and read tables - maybe the top-level interpreter too?  In the Xerox Common Lisp executive, *PACKAGE* is bound to the XCL-USER package; in the Common Lisp exec it's USER.



LOOPS is of historical interest as a direct antecedent of CLOS, but I don't recommend using LOOPS for new code.  CLOS is the way to go with regard to Lisp OOP, but I'm not sure the implementation of CLOS in Medley is quite what it should be.  It would be a great project for an interested Lisp hacker.

I'll let others comment on the different Executives and the state of Medley's CLOS.

                Herb

As a simple new user of the system, it seems to be "dealer's choice" when it comes to what I do but is there a cultural underpinning to prefer InterLisp? I've had a hunch to try writing a small GUI system for personal enjoyment I'd need time to study LOOPS (seems to have worked out for "Truckin'" yet the allure of CLOS calls me. :) --

[pixel...@gmail.com]

Ok, thanks for your thoughts! 

LOOPS is a bit strange, seems like they added some Prolog-ish inspired rule system in there. (I was poking at the manual from the InterLisp site)
For now, I'm blitting some lines into a window's graphics stream. Inspecting the window gave me the properties for the events, seems pretty sensible using WINDOWPROP to read and set them.
Thank heavens drawing isn't building log cabins from sawdust like modern Vulkan.


I'm able to call IL symbols from the Common Lisp shell.
https://i.imgur.com/umG4ioj.png (screenshot)