Re: [clisp-list] What can CLISP not do?

[Mayuresh K. <may...@ka...>]

On 2015-03-25 00:03, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> Mayuresh Kathe <may...@ka...> writes:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I am awaiting receipt of Mr. Touretzky's book on introduction to 
>> Common
>> Lisp to begin my self-training regimen.
>> 
>> Will be using CLISP as the environment for the same.
>> 
>> After my training has completed, would like to focus on CLISP as the
>> primary tool for all of my development going forward.
>> 
>> Given my inexperience, would like to pose a naive question.
>> What be the capabilities not provided by CLISP but be available under
>> the so called modern programming languages like Python/Ruby/Lua and
>> their frameworks?
> 
> There are none, because clisp is not a programming language, it's an
> implementation of a programming language!
> 
> There is nothing that you can do in other programming languages that 
> you
> cannot do (even better and more easily) with Common Lisp, if only for a
> fundamental theoric reason: Turing equivalence.

Great, that means, I can use just one tool with multiple capabilities to 
accomplish different tasks.
I have grown tired of having to learn multiple programming languages and 
mess things up when moving from one to another frequently.

> You can do anything from the smallest script to a successful startup
> software with clisp (eg. Paul Graham used clisp to write ViaWeb and 
> sell
> out to Yahoo, and then go on being a VC at http://ycombinator.com).  He
> could as well have made a SpaceY like Elon Musk's SpaceX, so I'd say 
> the
> sky's not even the limit!

That's nice, though, for me, the real reason is as mentioned above, 
"Peace of mind". :)

>> My domain of work would be computer network related tools for 
>> monitoring
>> and analysis of failures, etc.
> 
> While it's little known, nowadays there are several implementations of
> python, ruby or lua.  There are also several implementations of Common
> Lisp, of which clisp is but a single one.
> 
> clisp is a good CL implementation (as I said, Paul Graham earned
> millions with it), but eventually you may want to deploy some
> applications or programs using another CL implementation more adapted 
> to
> the specific case.

I intend to build an appliance around the Raspberry-Pi 2 running 
GNU/Linux with CLISP for the actual application.

I'll be writing a separate mail, but, hope CLISP can be really shrunk 
down to a compact disk size.

> [snip]
> 
> The point is that if you learn Common Lisp, and are careful to write
> conforming code, then you will be able to use this code with any
> conforming CL implementation.
> 
> So for example, when you learn clisp, while it has a very good FFI
> package, and a nice SCREEN package and raw KEYBOARD, a very nice SOCKET
> package, etc, it may be preferable to learn to use portability 
> libraries
> such as CFFI, cl-charms (ncurses), usocket or iolib.trivial-sockets
> instead of using clisp specific features directly, since those 
> libraries
> will allow you to run your code as well on other CL implementations,
> which you may have to do in a few years when your software is 
> completed,
> for delivery for such customer or in such environmented that you don't
> know today.

Thanks for this one too, is there any way to find out where those 
libraries be found?
Is there any kind of a centralized repository which I could visit to 
find out more?
Or would Google be my good friend? :)

Best regards,

~Mayuresh