[Gcl-devel] Re: a few questions about the status and direction of GCL

[Camm Maguire]

Greetings!

mikel evins <address@hidden> writes:

> Camm,
> 
> Over the weekend a new project sprang from the head of Zeus, and we
> are talking over which Lisp to use for it.
> 
> GCL is a possibility, in part because of your past willingness to fix
> shortcomings that prevented implementation of projects.
> 

For better or worse, I continue to be relatively 'existing-app'
oriented, so yes, I would like to help time-permitting with making
GCL work for your project.

> The new project is intended to build an open-source development system
> that is similar in spirit and design to the SK8 system developed at
> Apple's ATG in the late 80s and 90s. The original creator of SK8 is on
> board, and we are having preliminary logisitical and goals discussions.
> 

Quick searching seems to indicate that the original SK8 was released
in source form, no?

> One feature that Ruben (SK8's creator) insists on is Unicode
> support. Is such support planned for any soon-to-be forthcoming
> release of GCL?

We hadn't discussed this much, but if there is interest, it would not
be too hard from what I can tell, depending of course on what one
means by 'support'.  Perhaps you could briefly describe how any other
lisp system has done this to your satisfaction.  I'm hoping that we
can add a layer of new functions rather than changing the behavior of
existing functions.  There is also the impact on ANSI compliance if
any, of which I am quite ignorant, and hope Paul can illuminate for
us. 

> 
> Probably the new project will also need MOP features. How well does
> GCL support MOP-like features nowadays.
> 

Second time we've been asked about this in the last few days.  My
understanding is that PCL implements MOP in addition to CLOS, and we
use PCL in the ansi build.  In fact, our pcl files follow those in
cmucl quite closely, at least when we're working on this.  Just
browsed through the 'Art of the Metaobject Protocol' spec, and the
functions specified therein all appear to be fboundp in the ANSI
build.  But obviously, I don't use this myself, and so am no expert.
Feedback always appreciated.

We are also likely to be a bit more behind on the 'mop' than on the
ANSI clos, as Paul's test suite to my understanding only covers the
latter. 

Take care, 

> Thanks in advance for any info.
> 
> --me
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Camm Maguire                                            address@hidden
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."  --  Baha'u'llah