How did you find newLISP?

[Tim Johnson]

Jeff, - just curious - do you have more than one programmer working on one codebase?



I find development much faster in rebol than in python, and that includes

prototyping, and I would imagine similar comparisons between

newlisp and python.



When the customer expresses the concern that - should I be no longer

available to maintain code or should he/she have to find another

programmer for any reason at all - I have to concur that it would be

easier to find a python programmer than it would be to find a rebol

programmer.



In the case of newlisp, I'm sure that any scheme or CL programmer worth

their salt would be able to take over newlisp code. Especially if the

programmer documents well and documentation for both newlisp itself

and the custom code is part of the code package delivered.



If I'm right, it is a selling point that rebol doesn't have....

[Jeff]

I can't speak for rebol, but yes, with multiple programmers, Python is easier to maintain.  The cost of that is that you lose a lot of flexibility and speed.



I love Python.  I use it for most projects.  But when speed is a real issue, I use cl, which can be compiled.  I have used ocaml before as well, but it does not have the packaging tools that cl has (like asdf) or support for threading.



newLISP, though, is what I often use initially when I need to speed something from python up.  It's much faster than Python, but few interpreted languages can keep up with compiled code.



I like newLISP because I can concisely write a huge amount of functionality into a simple, small, space (the same reason I like Python).  And in many respects, it is easier to maintain, because it's a bottom-up language.



For example, I am now rewriting a program I wrote in common lisp in newLISP (which means I am having to write a *ton* of support code that was already written for me in cl.)  However, it does not get a huge boost from compiling.  What it really needs is high concurrency, responsiveness, and low memory usage, which is what nl offers me.[/i]

[Tim Johnson]

Although the syntax is different, there are a lot of similarities

between rebol and newlisp. I like the way that emacs handles

newlisp - it "understands" newlisp better than it does rebol.

And there is some improvement in the way that newlisp reports

errors (over rebol), but python really nails errors right down to the

file name and line number. Can't beat that.

[Jeff]

Python does have much better debugging tools than almost any other language (note that I did not say error handling; I prefer conditions to exceptions.)



One thing that I **really** miss in newLISP is a profiler.  I might have to write one using the new hooks into the interpreter.

[aron]

I learned Lisp at Linköpings university in the introduction programming course, we did use Allegro Common Lisp(Franz, Inc.). Later I think I found newLisp while locking for free implementations of Lisp, also working for windows XP, because that was what I was using at the moment.



I don't remember exactly but I think it was from this list I found it:

http://wiki.alu.org/Implementation">http://wiki.alu.org/Implementation

[pavelludiq]

This morning I found the site and discovered that i can write this:

Code Select Expand

('(1 2 3)  1)

and get 2, oh simplicity!



I also found out that i don't have to run newLISP on top of java(like clojure) or PLT(like arc), and i still get a modern dialect of lisp with an active community and descent libraries.