6 ms·

Lispworks 7.0 with Mobile (iOS, Android) Runtime

64 points by deepaksurti 11y ago

duncan_bayne 11y ago
I've asked their support folks whether they've plans to support mobile GUI too. I'm busy using Common Lisp to build a (hobbyist) home automation system and would love to develop mobile UIs in the same language ...
- deepaksurti 11y ago
  I have tested with the iOS Beta version while writing a 3D sports simulation game. I have missed these: a full object DB with a query language. Right now I use rucksack which serves my needs. Very productive to not have to deal with Core Data!!! The other thing I miss is live edits, though using TCP sockets while having the device on the same network will work. But I don't know how to overcome iOS security restrictions which prevent compilation of new code. Being able to write AI for a game and all game logic in CL is complete fun, as usual.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  Their support folks got back to me - promptly - to say that a) they're still considering whether to provide GUI bindings, and b) that one can call the required Java APIs from Lisp, so GUIs wouldn't be too big a deal anyhow.
616c 11y ago
I wonder if the mocl people will chime in, as they are the other game in town. https://wukix.com/mocl https://wukix.com/mocl Wish I knew enough Lisp to warrant buying any of these! But there is no way I would be dedicated to build an app in it.
- JasonFruit 11y ago
  Sometimes that's the best way to force yourself to learn — throw yourself in and do it.
- lambdaelite 11y ago
  While there is some overlap with the new mobile portion of LispWorks 7, mocl isn't in the same league. Allegro CL would be the proper competitor to LispWorks.
Tomte 11y ago
Finally a hobbyist edition, but still too pricey for me.
- darklajid 11y ago
  Agreed - and the pricing information is a) cumbersome to get to b) weird.. The prices below apply in the indicated regions only and are shown in US Dollars. [1] LispWorks 7.0 for Android Runtime, annual license with free upgrades and technical support €800 1: http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-lw4mr-2c.html http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-lw4mr-2c.html
frr149 11y ago
That's cool, but I think they should really be working on a clojure IDE. It's the only Lisp that seems to be going anywhere.
- Tomte 11y ago
  They are not going after the HN crowd. They are going after professionals who have been spoiled by commercial Lisp implementations for years and decades now. I doubt that Clojure is going anywhere with that demographic. And I'm absolutely certain that the existing Clojure audience wouldn't shell out a few thousand dollars. Especially since Lispworks is building a language implementation and ecosystem (KnowledgeWorks, CommonSQL, CLIM) where the IDE is just a relatively minor component.
- pavelludiq 11y ago
  Yes, abandon something that's been making money for 30 years and throw away decades of domain expertise because it's not fashionable. Great idea. Not that clojure is a bad language(I actually like it quite a bit), but compared to the professional common lisp world, it's a baby. CL has an extremely high-quality and stable specification, dozens of very good implementations for pretty much every platform(whit several ones that are decades old, and several ones that are brand new), a community that simply refuses to die, and use cases where clojure would be completely inadequate. Not to mention the assertion that non-clojure lisps are not going anywhere is completely false, both common lisp and racket(hell, even elisp) are growing in their niches and developing their ecosystems. Books and libraries are being written, products are being developed, conferences and meetups are organized, businesses are started and research is being done.
  - themartorana 11y ago
    With zero snark, because I've never had the (apparent) pleasure of working with a lisp, what are the use cases for Common Lisp? It barely registers when talking about building APIs and production cloud platforms for game services, which is my current wheelhouse. Clojure comes up, of course...
    - 11y ago
Mikeb85 11y ago
Price is too steep. I'd rather just use Clojure or SBCL...
- spacemanmatt 11y ago
  As a Clojurist, I approve of this message.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    Sooooo ... tell me about conditions & restarts in Clojure these days ;-P On a serious note, a good friend of mine recently evaluated Clojure and fell in love with it. Interestingly, he loves it for the same reason I didn't: the JVM. He saw his life being made easier by great Java integration, I saw the language and tooling being hindered by having to target the JVM. I think we're both right :)
    - jwr 11y ago
      As a serious (though former) Common Lisper, I recommend you take a look at Clojure. Rich Hickey's presentations are a great starting point. I did, and I haven't looked back — things that I thought would be complete road-blockers turned out not to be a problem at all (no CLOS, no conditions&restarts, Lisp-1, empty list not the same as nil, JVM). And there were things that made life soooo much better (concurrency primitives, STM data structures, ClojureScript, and, yes, JVM (it's better than you think)). Even if you don't start using it, it's worth taking a look.
  - spacemanmatt 11y ago
    I didn't realize Clojure had detractors such that it's a risk to even mention it while endorsing other languages. Can't say that sort of hostility is at all interesting around here.
arethuza 11y ago
Good to see LispWorks still going - I used it from '89 to '95 running on Sun and DEC Alpha workstations. Oddly enough one of the projects I worked on had a user interface written in PostScript (NeWS) driven by a Lisp backend - Harlequin, the original publishers of LispWorks ended up going into the PostScript RIP business.
- mark_l_watson 11y ago
  I second that. Many years ago I worked on their documentation in return for a little money and a discount on licenses. For customer projects it is good to have a vendor like LispWorks or Franz backing you up. For cost reasons, I use SBCL or Clojure for my own projects.
coldcode 11y ago
Currently it is 32-bit only so you can't really use it for anything in the store. They are working on 64bit.
WalterGR 11y ago
BTW, this is a full new release of LispWorks. What's New blurb: "New features in LispWorks 7.0 include a Java interface and improved Unicode support. There are new ports to ARM Linux and PowerPC/AIX, a 64-bit Professional Edition, and new Editions for hobby users at lower prices. Additionally, our new products LispWorks for Android Runtime and LispWorks for iOS Runtime target 'headless' Lisp libraries which you can incorporate into mobile apps." Brief release notes: http://www.lispworks.com/news/news34.html http://www.lispworks.com/news/news34.html More complete release notes: http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/lw70/RNIG/html/readme-131.htm http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/lw70/RNIG/html/readme... Price Information for customers in North America and the rest of the world except Europe, India, China (PRC) and Taiwan: The IDE: http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1c.html http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1c.html The "Hobbyist" editions of the IDE: http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1h.html http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1h.html The mobile run times, which require the IDE: http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-lw4mr-1c.html http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-lw4mr-1c.html (The pricing pages suggest that the mobile runtime licenses are annual whereas the license for the IDE is for a single version and doesn't expire.) And last but not least, the IDE edition comparison table: http://www.lispworks.com/products/features.html http://www.lispworks.com/products/features.html
gaze 11y ago
Holy hell why is this still so expensive? 64-bit Lispworks is $3000 when visual studio professional is $1200? Visual studio community is FREE for COMMERCIAL USE in small teams! What student has 500 bucks to throw at something that can't even distribute binaries?
- lispm 11y ago
  One is a multi billion dollar company with products milking its customers. The other one is LispWorks, a small company in the UK serving a small market. Food for thought: http://www.azulsystems.com/products/zing/whatisit http://www.azulsystems.com/products/zing/whatisit A JVM, yearly (!) cost for a single server: $8000.
  - gaze 11y ago
    Yeah but if you're a company the price of something is completely different. Maybe that server needs really excellent realtime performance for some really specific business need (finance?) I just don't understand how 500 bucks is a hobbyist price for a piece of software.
    - lispm 11y ago
      It seems that for this particular piece of software, there is no cheaper way to produce it. It's a compromise of pricing a product to keep it attractive and being able to do sustained business from the UK, where a team of developers is more expensive that in some other parts of the world. $500 is affordable for a lot of people. An iPhone 6 costs more. A vintage Symbolics Lisp Machine just was sold for $5150, more than ten times compared to a hobbyist LispWorks license.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  http://www.ozwinds.com.au/buffet-orfeo-professional-oboe-p-3662.html http://www.ozwinds.com.au/buffet-orfeo-professional-oboe-p-3... That's an $11,000 woodwind instrument right there, and worth every cent if you are, or aspire to be, a professional oboist. As Erik Naggum put it: "why are we even _thinking_ about home computer equipment when we wish to attract professional programmers? in _every_ field I know, the difference between the professional and the mass market is so large that Joe Blow wouldn’t believe the two could coexist."

64 points by deepaksurti 11y ago

I've asked their support folks whether they've plans to support mobile GUI too. I'm busy using Common Lisp to build a (hobbyist) home automation system and would love to develop mobile UIs in the same language ...

deepaksurti 11y ago
I have tested with the iOS Beta version while writing a 3D sports simulation game. I have missed these: a full object DB with a query language. Right now I use rucksack which serves my needs. Very productive to not have to deal with Core Data!!! The other thing I miss is live edits, though using TCP sockets while having the device on the same network will work. But I don't know how to overcome iOS security restrictions which prevent compilation of new code. Being able to write AI for a game and all game logic in CL is complete fun, as usual.
duncan_bayne 11y ago
Their support folks got back to me - promptly - to say that a) they're still considering whether to provide GUI bindings, and b) that one can call the required Java APIs from Lisp, so GUIs wouldn't be too big a deal anyhow.

616c 11y ago

I wonder if the mocl people will chime in, as they are the other game in town. https://wukix.com/mocl https://wukix.com/mocl Wish I knew enough Lisp to warrant buying any of these! But there is no way I would be dedicated to build an app in it.

JasonFruit 11y ago
Sometimes that's the best way to force yourself to learn — throw yourself in and do it.
lambdaelite 11y ago
While there is some overlap with the new mobile portion of LispWorks 7, mocl isn't in the same league. Allegro CL would be the proper competitor to LispWorks.

Tomte 11y ago

Finally a hobbyist edition, but still too pricey for me.

darklajid 11y ago
Agreed - and the pricing information is a) cumbersome to get to b) weird.. The prices below apply in the indicated regions only and are shown in US Dollars. [1] LispWorks 7.0 for Android Runtime, annual license with free upgrades and technical support €800 1: http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-lw4mr-2c.html http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-lw4mr-2c.html

frr149 11y ago

That's cool, but I think they should really be working on a clojure IDE. It's the only Lisp that seems to be going anywhere.

Tomte 11y ago
They are not going after the HN crowd. They are going after professionals who have been spoiled by commercial Lisp implementations for years and decades now. I doubt that Clojure is going anywhere with that demographic. And I'm absolutely certain that the existing Clojure audience wouldn't shell out a few thousand dollars. Especially since Lispworks is building a language implementation and ecosystem (KnowledgeWorks, CommonSQL, CLIM) where the IDE is just a relatively minor component.
pavelludiq 11y ago
Yes, abandon something that's been making money for 30 years and throw away decades of domain expertise because it's not fashionable. Great idea. Not that clojure is a bad language(I actually like it quite a bit), but compared to the professional common lisp world, it's a baby. CL has an extremely high-quality and stable specification, dozens of very good implementations for pretty much every platform(whit several ones that are decades old, and several ones that are brand new), a community that simply refuses to die, and use cases where clojure would be completely inadequate. Not to mention the assertion that non-clojure lisps are not going anywhere is completely false, both common lisp and racket(hell, even elisp) are growing in their niches and developing their ecosystems. Books and libraries are being written, products are being developed, conferences and meetups are organized, businesses are started and research is being done.
- themartorana 11y ago
  With zero snark, because I've never had the (apparent) pleasure of working with a lisp, what are the use cases for Common Lisp? It barely registers when talking about building APIs and production cloud platforms for game services, which is my current wheelhouse. Clojure comes up, of course...
  - 11y ago

Mikeb85 11y ago

Price is too steep. I'd rather just use Clojure or SBCL...

spacemanmatt 11y ago
As a Clojurist, I approve of this message.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  Sooooo ... tell me about conditions & restarts in Clojure these days ;-P On a serious note, a good friend of mine recently evaluated Clojure and fell in love with it. Interestingly, he loves it for the same reason I didn't: the JVM. He saw his life being made easier by great Java integration, I saw the language and tooling being hindered by having to target the JVM. I think we're both right :)
  - jwr 11y ago
    As a serious (though former) Common Lisper, I recommend you take a look at Clojure. Rich Hickey's presentations are a great starting point. I did, and I haven't looked back — things that I thought would be complete road-blockers turned out not to be a problem at all (no CLOS, no conditions&restarts, Lisp-1, empty list not the same as nil, JVM). And there were things that made life soooo much better (concurrency primitives, STM data structures, ClojureScript, and, yes, JVM (it's better than you think)). Even if you don't start using it, it's worth taking a look.
- spacemanmatt 11y ago
  I didn't realize Clojure had detractors such that it's a risk to even mention it while endorsing other languages. Can't say that sort of hostility is at all interesting around here.

arethuza 11y ago

Good to see LispWorks still going - I used it from '89 to '95 running on Sun and DEC Alpha workstations. Oddly enough one of the projects I worked on had a user interface written in PostScript (NeWS) driven by a Lisp backend - Harlequin, the original publishers of LispWorks ended up going into the PostScript RIP business.

mark_l_watson 11y ago
I second that. Many years ago I worked on their documentation in return for a little money and a discount on licenses. For customer projects it is good to have a vendor like LispWorks or Franz backing you up. For cost reasons, I use SBCL or Clojure for my own projects.

coldcode 11y ago

Currently it is 32-bit only so you can't really use it for anything in the store. They are working on 64bit.

WalterGR 11y ago

BTW, this is a full new release of LispWorks. What's New blurb: "New features in LispWorks 7.0 include a Java interface and improved Unicode support. There are new ports to ARM Linux and PowerPC/AIX, a 64-bit Professional Edition, and new Editions for hobby users at lower prices. Additionally, our new products LispWorks for Android Runtime and LispWorks for iOS Runtime target 'headless' Lisp libraries which you can incorporate into mobile apps." Brief release notes: http://www.lispworks.com/news/news34.html http://www.lispworks.com/news/news34.html More complete release notes: http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/lw70/RNIG/html/readme-131.htm http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/lw70/RNIG/html/readme... Price Information for customers in North America and the rest of the world except Europe, India, China (PRC) and Taiwan: The IDE: http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1c.html http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1c.html The "Hobbyist" editions of the IDE: http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1h.html http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1h.html The mobile run times, which require the IDE: http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-lw4mr-1c.html http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-lw4mr-1c.html (The pricing pages suggest that the mobile runtime licenses are annual whereas the license for the IDE is for a single version and doesn't expire.) And last but not least, the IDE edition comparison table: http://www.lispworks.com/products/features.html http://www.lispworks.com/products/features.html

gaze 11y ago

Holy hell why is this still so expensive? 64-bit Lispworks is $3000 when visual studio professional is $1200? Visual studio community is FREE for COMMERCIAL USE in small teams! What student has 500 bucks to throw at something that can't even distribute binaries?

lispm 11y ago
One is a multi billion dollar company with products milking its customers. The other one is LispWorks, a small company in the UK serving a small market. Food for thought: http://www.azulsystems.com/products/zing/whatisit http://www.azulsystems.com/products/zing/whatisit A JVM, yearly (!) cost for a single server: $8000.
- gaze 11y ago
  Yeah but if you're a company the price of something is completely different. Maybe that server needs really excellent realtime performance for some really specific business need (finance?) I just don't understand how 500 bucks is a hobbyist price for a piece of software.
  - lispm 11y ago
    It seems that for this particular piece of software, there is no cheaper way to produce it. It's a compromise of pricing a product to keep it attractive and being able to do sustained business from the UK, where a team of developers is more expensive that in some other parts of the world. $500 is affordable for a lot of people. An iPhone 6 costs more. A vintage Symbolics Lisp Machine just was sold for $5150, more than ten times compared to a hobbyist LispWorks license.
duncan_bayne 11y ago
http://www.ozwinds.com.au/buffet-orfeo-professional-oboe-p-3662.html http://www.ozwinds.com.au/buffet-orfeo-professional-oboe-p-3... That's an $11,000 woodwind instrument right there, and worth every cent if you are, or aspire to be, a professional oboist. As Erik Naggum put it: "why are we even _thinking_ about home computer equipment when we wish to attract professional programmers? in _every_ field I know, the difference between the professional and the mass market is so large that Joe Blow wouldn’t believe the two could coexist."