Testing the waters.

[Rainer Joswig]

>>>You won't get portability from LispOS to other versions of CL in any
>>>case, because you won't have the POS ported to the other version of
>>>CL. And POSes are always very tightly integrated with the virtual
>>>machine and garbage collector, and application code.
>>
>>
>>If you don't define interfaces that will make your code
>>portable (as portable as you can), then you're doing something
>>wrong. I want Lisp code to be as portable as possible.
>>
>>
>>********************** MAXIMIZE PORTABILITY **************************
>
>Ok, hands up everybody who has no idea what an object database is. 

I just don't care where the mail system gets the mail from
or where it stores them: in text files, as persistent objects,
an object-oriented database, in a relational database - whatever.
I also don't want to care if these mails are stored local or remote.
A sane architecture let's you plug in new access paths if you
need them. Try to find a simple *and* generic solution.

Guess why Symbolics called their Lisp OS "Genera"? Because
it does provide services regardless of their underlying
implementation. Examples are the generic networking systems,
which enables transparent data access of different media
and protocols. Another example is the window system. Code
runs unchanged on X-Windows, Macs and on the native window
system. One can use the window system on the MacIvory at the same time
on a native driven screen, the Mac screen and logged in via
X-Windows. The applications just don't care what
type of screen they are getting, (unless they make use
of special features - like a frame grabber).

Another example is the access to files. In Genera it doesn't
matter that much whether your files are local (in the LMFS), local
on your Mac (HFS), local on your SUN (UFS), remote via
NFILE, remote via NFS, remote via FTP, ... If I'd use
logical pathnames, the application wouldn't even know
about that most of the time.

I *personally* would like to see a Lisp system that does
provide the same (and more) convenient level of integration
in the surrounding infrastructure.

Rainer Joswig, Lavielle EDV Systemberatung GmbH & Co, Lotharstrasse 2b, D22041
Hamburg, Tel: +49 40 658088, Fax: +49 40 65808-202,
Email: joswig@lavielle.com , WWW: http://www.lavielle.com/~joswig/