C Y wrote:
> --- "Vadim V. Zhytnikov" <vvzhy@mail.ru> wrote:
>
> > There is also another method to improve GCL memory allocation.
> > Function allocate-growth tells GCL how to allocate
> > new chunks of RAM if memory of some type is exhausted.
> > The size of the chink can be tuned as well.
> > But frankly I'd better move Maxima to other lisp.
> > My experience with GCL is not so promising so far.
>
> I am beginning to agree with you there. There does not seem to be
> any dedicated group working on GCL, and most of us here are (I think)
> only interested in GCL as a means to run Maxima. Clisp seems to be
> the most user friendly Lisp (yay readline) with a good build process
> but if I recall correctly was the worst performer on the benchmark
> tests? CMUCL looked like a real pain to compile when I downloaded
> the source. Which one do you think is best? Would it be possible to
> select what you think is the best overall Lisp, and then start
> talking to the group that maintains it to add fixes for the
> limitations you run into?
It seems to me that the best strategy is to maintain Maxima compatible
with as many background lisps as possible both free and commercial
(if someone cares to do this). Tighting Maxima to any particular Lisp
incarnation which would be a terrible mistake. Whenever possible
any piece of Maxima code which is particular Lisp dependent
must be replaced by standard compliant code. This is not easy way but
it seems that this is the only way to make Maxima future safe.
Lisps come and go...
This is theory. But what do we have in practice right now?
We have three Common Lisp implementations -
GCL, clisp and cmucl. Naturally GCL is good with Maxima
(btw I compiled GCL with the readline patch and it works
to me fine both in GCL and in Maxima). And I think the
immediate task is to make Maxima completely compatible
with clisp and cmucl as well. And as far as I know this
goal is almost achieved especially with clisp. At present
clisp seems to be the most reliable and stable but indeed
clisp is slowest of the three. Cmucl is the fastest option
and porting Maxima to it is not insurmountable as well.
As for GCL I expect more troubles with it in near future.
It has problems with gcc 2.96 and I guess it will have
troubles with gcc 3.0 as well (not tried yet).
But even with gcc 2.95.3 it suddenly stop to build
for me after recent glibc upgrade. I wish I'm
wrong about GCL and It would be excellent if
someone take care of it.
Best wishes,
Vadim
--
[ Vadim V. Zhytnikov <vvzhy@mail.ru> <vvzhy@td.lpi.ac.ru> ]