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Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

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Re: Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

#141

Post by squeaky-clean »

jgerrish wrote: post #136
oblio wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's right, though. If I'm a somewhat polyglot developer ambivalent to any language out there, why would I pay those licensing costs when I can just go elsewhere instead? That's what regular devs do, they don't even bother writing articles or commenting on HN :-)

> That's what regular devs do, they don't even bother writing articles or commenting on HN :-) I'll take the bait, and roll up several of my comments into one. First, the support contract costs from the commercial vendors can make sense. It's one of the most expensive parts of software. We joke about fixing relatives' printers, but it's not false. Support costs introduce a counter-balance. Second, a message to everyo…

Is support costs for a language actually worth it? I've used Python professionally for about 10 years now and never hit an actual python runtime bug or needed to contact the PSF for support. A language vendor telling me about the faith I should have in their support sounds like I shouldn't have faith in the language.

I've never learned a lisp because every runtime and tooling set up seems 20 years behind modern. I'd be interested in learning with a good lisp variant, but not if I have to pay.

It's like how Adobe doesn't really do anything major to prevent piracy. And because of that hobbyists learn their tools and then companies have to pay for those tools because it's the dominant tool in that industry.

Re: Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

#142

Post by taeric »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #141
jgerrish wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's what regular devs do, they don't even bother writing articles or commenting on HN :-) I'll take the bait, and roll up several of my comments into one. First, the support contract costs from the commercial vendors can make sense. It's one of the most expensive parts of software. We joke about fixing relatives' printers, but it's not false. Support costs introduce a counter-balance. Second, a message to everyo…

Is support costs for a language actually worth it? I've used Python professionally for about 10 years now and never hit an actual python runtime bug or needed to contact the PSF for support. A language vendor telling me about the faith I should have in their support sounds like I shouldn't have faith in the language. I've never learned a lisp because every runtime and tooling set up seems 20 years behind modern. I'd…

Support at this level can also include help making something perform well. Or help understanding bugs in your code. That is, it isn't just a "prove we are at fault and we will fix it thing" which plagues a lot of moderate sized projects online.

Re: Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

#143

Post by _ph_ »

dutchblacksmith wrote: post #84

Lispworks starts with an affordable hobbyist edition. There is also a hobbyist development edition.

Sorry, I have to disagree. €500-600 for just the ability to use the IDE but not being able to create an executable doesn't sound very appealing to me. And that all limited to "non-commercial" use. And per platform. So you can't just switch between different OSes.

Re: Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

#144

Post by taeric »

account-5 wrote: post #14

I would like to learn Lisp but am easily confused with where to start. What implementation do I use? On a general level do I start with CL, schema, racket, etc (apologies I know this thread is about common lisp). It's all very confusing. I'm like this with most things, like I want to learn Forth too but have that same problem. I learned vanilla JavaScript because I didn't know where to start with the 1000+ frameworks…

If you are not looking at a specific project to get going, https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262546379/the-little-learner/ was just released and is a very fun treatment of both lisp and machine learning.

Re: Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

#145

Post by andsoitis »

galdor wrote: post #9
mark_l_watson wrote: post #4

I always like seeing Common Lisp links, but personally I was a bit put off by the very strong anti-commercial comments about LispWorks and Franz. I had a business idea requiring Common Lisp a few years ago and I purchased a LispWorks Professional license. Small standalone executables with a tree shaker [1] and I has received very good support without paying for the high priority support service. I also paid the maint…

The commercial aspect is not a problem in my opinion (but again english is not my main language so I might have conveyed the wrong tone). The issue is the pricing model which may work for established company ready to invest money from the start, but is simply out of touch with independant developers and small companies exploring the possibility of using Common Lisp. Open sourcing Lispworks and selling support contrac…

You wrote of LispWorks: “ The professional and enterprise licenses do not really make sense for anyone”

Perhaps a question I would ask is what are you trying to convey with this statement? It appears to be quite subjective.

Re: Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

#146

Post by _ph_ »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #4

I always like seeing Common Lisp links, but personally I was a bit put off by the very strong anti-commercial comments about LispWorks and Franz. I had a business idea requiring Common Lisp a few years ago and I purchased a LispWorks Professional license. Small standalone executables with a tree shaker [1] and I has received very good support without paying for the high priority support service. I also paid the maint…

I am convinced that Lispworks is a great product. From what I can see it comes with a nice IDE and some nice libraries. I would have loved to give it a try, but unfortunately I was never able to do do so. And that is where the critique of the licensing scheme comes from. I am sure there are quite a few professionals for whom Lispworks has great value and the license costs are just a non-issue. But despite being a professional Lisp programmer for more than 15 years, I never came close to licensing Lispworks. Nor in the 20 years of being a Lisp enthusiast.

As an enthusiast, I would be happy to spend a few hundred € for private usage, but not thousands. I would like to be able to really evaluate the product before spending a significant amount of money on it, but with the limits of the personal edition, it immediately quit on the first attempt of starting my back-then tiny hobby project.

Don't get me wrong, a company has the right to select the business model which fits them best and I might not be their intended audience. But that is why I never bought from them and as I never used the product didn't really put under strong consideration when choosing a Lisp implementation for commercial work.

On the other side, with SBCL I have a really strong Lisp implementation. The compiler is likely to produce better code and it is readily available. Slime might lack the fanciness of a standalone IDE, but as a longtime Emacs user, that might actually be an advantage.

Re: Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

#147

Post by kgwgk »

_ph_ wrote: post #146
mark_l_watson wrote: post #4

I always like seeing Common Lisp links, but personally I was a bit put off by the very strong anti-commercial comments about LispWorks and Franz. I had a business idea requiring Common Lisp a few years ago and I purchased a LispWorks Professional license. Small standalone executables with a tree shaker [1] and I has received very good support without paying for the high priority support service. I also paid the maint…

I am convinced that Lispworks is a great product. From what I can see it comes with a nice IDE and some nice libraries. I would have loved to give it a try, but unfortunately I was never able to do do so. And that is where the critique of the licensing scheme comes from. I am sure there are quite a few professionals for whom Lispworks has great value and the license costs are just a non-issue. But despite being a pro…

> As an enthusiast, I would be happy to spend a few hundred € for private usage, but not thousands.

Note that the cost for private usage starts at a few hundred €. You only get to "thousands" if you include multiple platforms or several support incidents.

Re: Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

#148

Post by tmtvl »

oblio wrote: post #139
tmtvl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, but there are ways around it: http://blog.quicklisp.org/2011/08/going-back-in-dist-time.ht...

I'm confused, is this about Quicklisp itself or about the packages it manages? I.e. quicklisp 1.1 versus quicklisp 1.0 or libfoo 1.1 vs libfoo 1.0?

It's about the packages, a Quicklisp dist has a list of packages of specific versions (like libfoo 1.1, libbar 1.0, and libbaz 1.2) and you can switch to an older dist (which can have libfoo 1.0, no libbar, and libbaz 1.2).

Re: Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

#149

Post by runevault »

taeric wrote: post #144
account-5 wrote: post #14

I would like to learn Lisp but am easily confused with where to start. What implementation do I use? On a general level do I start with CL, schema, racket, etc (apologies I know this thread is about common lisp). It's all very confusing. I'm like this with most things, like I want to learn Forth too but have that same problem. I learned vanilla JavaScript because I didn't know where to start with the 1000+ frameworks…

If you are not looking at a specific project to get going, https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262546379/the-little-learner/ was just released and is a very fun treatment of both lisp and machine learning.

I thought Little Learner assumed you already knew Lisp/scheme. You'd probably want to go through at LEAST Little Schemer from same author first to get the basics.

Re: Common Lisp Implementations in 2023

#150

Post by brudgers »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #4

I always like seeing Common Lisp links, but personally I was a bit put off by the very strong anti-commercial comments about LispWorks and Franz. I had a business idea requiring Common Lisp a few years ago and I purchased a LispWorks Professional license. Small standalone executables with a tree shaker [1] and I has received very good support without paying for the high priority support service. I also paid the maint…

Looking at the price of the “Hobbyist DV” version, it is not out of line with what people often spend on hobbies like photography, music, and cycling.

Or just on beer and/or wine.

Or books.

Not to say people don’t spend less on their hobbies, just that a license is a less than a Sony A7R3 or a used Les Paul.

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