VM fast enough?

[Mike McDonald]

>Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 19:26:44 -0700
>From: Luca Pisati <pisati@nichimen.com>
>To: lispos@math.gatech.edu
>Subject: Re: VM fast enough?
>
>Gilbert Baumann wrote:
>> 
>> Rainer Joswig <joswig@lavielle.com> writes:
>> >
>> > Would you think a VM would be fast enough?
>> > Not for writing small gimmick applets, but for running
>> > publishing systems, 3d renderers, doing sound synthesis,
>> > CAD applications, multimedia environments, ...?
>> Tough question.
>
>For sure Lisp is probably not fast enough for 3D renderers.
>Even if Nichimen's N-World 2D/3D animation software is
>almost completely in Cl/CLOS, the renderer is in C++
>
>Forget about emulating it, right now we pray for
>faster hardware rendering ...

  Just make that check payable to mikemac@sgi.com! :-))

>> Why looking at Java? Want does the Java camp offer besides lots of
>> hype and ugly syntax?
>> 
>> > - What should the Lisp OS do?
>> Less paging, less crashing :-)
>
>Less paging, I agree ! Less crashing .... I never experienced
>them many (at least on Symbolics).

  The only time Genera died on me was one time when I foolishly
advised a common function like nth. Boy was that ugly! (Once in
awhile, one needs to get bit by one's own stupidity!)


>I'm sorry, but advice is a paleolithic tool when you have CLOS
>and MOP available.  Our user interface (CLOS/MOP) is so dynamic
>that sometimes we find a menu that we never saw before :)

  Agreed.

  Mike McDonald
  mikemac@engr.sgi.com