5 ms·

SBCL 20: Steel Bank Common Lisp's 20th Anniversary Workshop

157 points by kristianp 7y ago

rogerb 7y ago
Fantastic implementation - rock solid. It does feel like the OS X version trails the rest of the platforms, is that true ? It hasn't mattered much for the work I've done with it but curious.
- cscurmudgeon 7y ago
  I always compile from scratch on OS X to get any feature I need. Quite easy following the README.
- reikonomusha 7y ago
  Compiling from source (sh make.sh --fancy; sh install.sh, it’s really that simple) gives you something up to date and stable on OS X.
- divs1210 7y ago
  I have found Portacle [1] to be a great starting point! [1] https://portacle.github.io https://portacle.github.io
reikonomusha 7y ago
SBCL is an implementation of Common Lisp with a long and rich history (if you include CMUCL as a part of that history). It’s an implementation that sees regular contributions from random travelers, and the team of regular developers (if you can even call them a “team”) is small and loosely knit but surprisingly steady. There’s a trusted set of individuals with commit privileges and many of them hack and improve SBCL just about every day. Some of the regular devs are new with their first commits clocking in less than 6 months ago, and others are long retired, having moved on to other things beyond SBCL. SBCL is a piece of software that’s not inundated with opinions, politics, drama, and other organizational issues. That is in part due to the fact that the folks who develop it must stay grounded. ANSI Common Lisp is, well, a standardized language and the SBCL aims to follow it to a tee. SBCL is just a small-town coffee shop compared to the Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts of other language implementations. As a professional and commercial user of their software, the size of the user base and developer team used to worry me. But 20 years of stability—compared to even the most contemporary language ecosystems—has given me solace in my choice to use it.
- cheez 7y ago
  Interesting. I suppose you use it for servers and you don't deploy SBCL to end-user machines?
  - reikonomusha 7y ago
    It is deployed to end-user machines. [0] It’s also open source. [1,2] [0] https://www.rigetti.com/forest https://www.rigetti.com/forest [1] https://github.com/rigetti/qvm https://github.com/rigetti/qvm [2] https://github.com/rigetti/quilc https://github.com/rigetti/quilc
    - cheez 7y ago
      Really cool!
    - 7thaccount 7y ago
      Very neat! Any blog post on why you chose Common Lisp? I assume you wanted to build your own DSL with macros, but several other tools can do this (Smalltalk, Clojure, Racket, Chez Scheme, Julia... etc). I like CL and think it is as good a choice as any, but what made you decide to use it over some other options?
      - reikonomusha 7y ago
        Not yet. Hopefully one coming soon!
        7thaccount 7y ago
        I look forward to it. Do you have a favorite article on Quantum Computing for Dummies? How they work, what problems they're good at...etc. I'm sure many many exist, but I figure you have one you point people towards.
  - pcr910303 7y ago
    > I suppose you use it for servers and you don't deploy SBCL to end-user machines? AFAIK, most Common Lisp applications are deployed in a single binary, bundled with the lisp implementation. SBCL isn’t an exception, so if someone would deploy an SBCL app to end-users, one would build a self-contained application with the `sb-ext:save-lisp-and-die` function [0]. [0]: https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/scripting.html https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/scripting.html
nabla9 7y ago
SBCL is amazing. If you walk the development history back trough forks, organizations and names the starting point is Spice Lisp[1] in 1980, then CMUCL in 1985 and finally SBCL in 1999. [1]: See page 58 in Performance and evaluation of Lisp systems by Richard Gabriel http://rpgpoet.com/Files/Timrep.pdf http://rpgpoet.com/Files/Timrep.pdf
codr7 7y ago
I've used SBCL regularly since the initial announcement, truly an excellent piece of software that only keeps getting better. Being able to sit back and watch bug fixes and performance improvements trickle in without having to deal with the usual torrent of new/deprecated features is a nice change from other languages. Using implementation-specific features is mostly frowned upon in the CL community, but SBCL is so rock-solid and readily available that I feel less and less motivated to deal with cross-implementation issues. Much like GHC in Haskell land. Keep it up!
divs1210 7y ago
It is truly amazing that SBCL is so stable and fast without much (if any) Big Co. support! Also, Portacle [1] is a SBCL + (Emacs based) IDE distro that's super easy to setup and use. [1] https://portacle.github.io https://portacle.github.io
- anta40 7y ago
  Is this still actively mantained? I still use Windows and sometimes the machines I'm working on don't have dev environment to build SBCL.
  - p_l 7y ago
    Portacle is actively worked on, though Shinmera (author) afaik doesn't use Windows much, though he attempts to support it equally.
ahefner 7y ago
SBCL is great. I do think it would be a significant improvement to include a fuller featured terminal REPL out of the box (with history, s-exp editing keystrokes, completion), and that this would make a better first impression on new users experimenting with the language, before they've given in and installed SLIME - and probably beneficial for the crowd that wants to use their favorite editor rather than Emacs+SLIME, insomuch as they only need to solve the problem of getting definitions reloaded from the editor, without having to also reinvent slime-repl, inspector, debugger, etc.

157 points by kristianp 7y ago

Fantastic implementation - rock solid. It does feel like the OS X version trails the rest of the platforms, is that true ? It hasn't mattered much for the work I've done with it but curious.

cscurmudgeon 7y ago
I always compile from scratch on OS X to get any feature I need. Quite easy following the README.
reikonomusha 7y ago
Compiling from source (sh make.sh --fancy; sh install.sh, it’s really that simple) gives you something up to date and stable on OS X.
divs1210 7y ago
I have found Portacle [1] to be a great starting point! [1] https://portacle.github.io https://portacle.github.io

reikonomusha 7y ago

SBCL is an implementation of Common Lisp with a long and rich history (if you include CMUCL as a part of that history). It’s an implementation that sees regular contributions from random travelers, and the team of regular developers (if you can even call them a “team”) is small and loosely knit but surprisingly steady. There’s a trusted set of individuals with commit privileges and many of them hack and improve SBCL just about every day. Some of the regular devs are new with their first commits clocking in less than 6 months ago, and others are long retired, having moved on to other things beyond SBCL. SBCL is a piece of software that’s not inundated with opinions, politics, drama, and other organizational issues. That is in part due to the fact that the folks who develop it must stay grounded. ANSI Common Lisp is, well, a standardized language and the SBCL aims to follow it to a tee. SBCL is just a small-town coffee shop compared to the Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts of other language implementations. As a professional and commercial user of their software, the size of the user base and developer team used to worry me. But 20 years of stability—compared to even the most contemporary language ecosystems—has given me solace in my choice to use it.

cheez 7y ago
Interesting. I suppose you use it for servers and you don't deploy SBCL to end-user machines?
- reikonomusha 7y ago
  It is deployed to end-user machines. [0] It’s also open source. [1,2] [0] https://www.rigetti.com/forest https://www.rigetti.com/forest [1] https://github.com/rigetti/qvm https://github.com/rigetti/qvm [2] https://github.com/rigetti/quilc https://github.com/rigetti/quilc
  - cheez 7y ago
    Really cool!
  - 7thaccount 7y ago
    Very neat! Any blog post on why you chose Common Lisp? I assume you wanted to build your own DSL with macros, but several other tools can do this (Smalltalk, Clojure, Racket, Chez Scheme, Julia... etc). I like CL and think it is as good a choice as any, but what made you decide to use it over some other options?
    - reikonomusha 7y ago
      Not yet. Hopefully one coming soon!
      - 7thaccount 7y ago
        I look forward to it. Do you have a favorite article on Quantum Computing for Dummies? How they work, what problems they're good at...etc. I'm sure many many exist, but I figure you have one you point people towards.
- pcr910303 7y ago
  > I suppose you use it for servers and you don't deploy SBCL to end-user machines? AFAIK, most Common Lisp applications are deployed in a single binary, bundled with the lisp implementation. SBCL isn’t an exception, so if someone would deploy an SBCL app to end-users, one would build a self-contained application with the `sb-ext:save-lisp-and-die` function [0]. [0]: https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/scripting.html https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/scripting.html

nabla9 7y ago

SBCL is amazing. If you walk the development history back trough forks, organizations and names the starting point is Spice Lisp[1] in 1980, then CMUCL in 1985 and finally SBCL in 1999. [1]: See page 58 in Performance and evaluation of Lisp systems by Richard Gabriel http://rpgpoet.com/Files/Timrep.pdf http://rpgpoet.com/Files/Timrep.pdf

codr7 7y ago

I've used SBCL regularly since the initial announcement, truly an excellent piece of software that only keeps getting better. Being able to sit back and watch bug fixes and performance improvements trickle in without having to deal with the usual torrent of new/deprecated features is a nice change from other languages. Using implementation-specific features is mostly frowned upon in the CL community, but SBCL is so rock-solid and readily available that I feel less and less motivated to deal with cross-implementation issues. Much like GHC in Haskell land. Keep it up!

divs1210 7y ago

It is truly amazing that SBCL is so stable and fast without much (if any) Big Co. support! Also, Portacle [1] is a SBCL + (Emacs based) IDE distro that's super easy to setup and use. [1] https://portacle.github.io https://portacle.github.io

anta40 7y ago
Is this still actively mantained? I still use Windows and sometimes the machines I'm working on don't have dev environment to build SBCL.
- p_l 7y ago
  Portacle is actively worked on, though Shinmera (author) afaik doesn't use Windows much, though he attempts to support it equally.

ahefner 7y ago

SBCL is great. I do think it would be a significant improvement to include a fuller featured terminal REPL out of the box (with history, s-exp editing keystrokes, completion), and that this would make a better first impression on new users experimenting with the language, before they've given in and installed SLIME - and probably beneficial for the crowd that wants to use their favorite editor rather than Emacs+SLIME, insomuch as they only need to solve the problem of getting definitions reloaded from the editor, without having to also reinvent slime-repl, inspector, debugger, etc.