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Messages - stellan

#1
Whither newLISP? / not or null
March 26, 2004, 10:11:27 AM
just a minor point. I think that (null something) feels more intuitive than (not something) if you are testing for nil or the empty list. Of course I can define a function null myself but still...



stellan
#2
Hello everybody,



I am new to these groups, mainly because I have stayed behind with version 6.22 and have pestered Lutz with personal mail instead. I was turned away by the change to Tcl/tk, but now it feels OK. I do not know why but has the documentation become clearer?



OK, so I have a Windows application supporting creativity and structuring of thoughts in a mindmap-like way. It is made up of two processes: a front-end in Delphi (400 kB of source code) and a back-end in newlisp (200 kB of source code). They communicate with TCP/IP. I have a web site http://www.succeed.se">www.succeed.se which up to now only is in Swedish, sorry.



I thought I should give my experiences when changing over to 7.5 to whoever might be interested. I can't see who whould be, but anyway, it might give me some friends and contacts to solve problems in the future.



The lisp code size is rather large (I think) but the work took only a few days. My main problems were:

- reserved symbols collided

- time and date functions were changed

- default in case statement changed

- system functions missing, like events and timers

- tcp/ip functions were different, not even driven

- I spent almost a day on chasing the quote in

  (net-receive port 'str size)

 Now, I know it is my fault but is not this a stupid syntax? In the case (set 'var value) I understand it, but here - no.

- At most errors during the debugging the back-end (=newlisp) exited in stead of staying up and displaying an error message and letting me investigate what went wrong. I start newlisp with

  winExec(pChar('"' + _sysDir + 'newlisp.exe"'), sw_minimize);

Do not bother about delphi details but you can see that it is the raw newlisp without any switches.



One last (and first) thing - what a marvellous job Lutz has done. The documentation is also superb. Thanks!



Hope I did not bore you to death

best regards

Stellan Borg