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- From: Cyber Surfer <cyber_surfer@wildcard.demon.co.uk>
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.c++
- Subject: Re: Why garbage collection?
- Date: Sat, 03 Feb 96 16:22:07 GMT
- Organization: The Wildcard Killer Butterfly Breeding Ground
- Message-ID: <823364527snz@wildcard.demon.co.uk>
- References: <4ecmfo$as9@news2.ios.com> <4ei4og$la1@info.epfl.ch> <s08spgxh3r1.fsf@lox.ICSI.Berkeley.EDU> <823078760snz@wildcard.demon.co.uk> <4eqjlb$ig7@news.ox.ac.uk>
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- In article <4eqjlb$ig7@news.ox.ac.uk>
- barlow@xserver.sjc.ox.ac.uk "Daniel Barlow" writes:
-
- > I don't know lisp. I've done little bits of elisp (but I understand that
- > that Doesn't Count) and I've played with scheme (actually guile), but
- > that's about all. I'd like to learn (curiosity value) but I'm
- > holding off until I can think of something to write in it. And until
- > I have more time.
-
- Start by reading the Lisp FAQ, and then pick one of the tutorial books
- mentioned in it. Don't start with any reference books, unless you already
- know Lisp and perhaps need a good ref, or you want to write a compiler.
- I can't comment on elisp or guile, as I've not used either of them, nor
- am I likely to any time soon.
-
- > The limiting factor is surely not cost. I have gcc and gcl on my
- > computer; they were both entirely free. In fact, I understand that gcl
- > comes precompiled as part of the popular Slackware Linux distribution.
- > I know of approximately one linux user who actually installed it (except
- > by accident). Why the low takeup?
-
- I have a copy of Linux-FT, but I can't use it yet. A hardware problem
- on the motherboard of my machine stops it from installing (it hangs).
- NT installed on the same drive ok, but couldn't format it. Perhaps it
- was the same hardware problem. (Dell are fixing it with a BIOS update.
- Eventually.) Alternately, I could buy a new disk controller. However,
- I'd also need to buy a new drive, too, as the 1st drive is now used
- by NT, which I really _do_ need to use.
-
- BTW, I'm _paid_ to use VC++. I know that gcc is available for Win32,
- but I have no guarantee that it'll work with the tools I use, and
- since one of those tools is MFC, I might as well use the MFC Wizards
- and make the experience as painless as possible.
-
- As for gcl, I don't know if that's available for NT yet.
-
- > One possible consideration (at least among the unixheads that I swap
- > opinions with) is that the only lisp most people on unix see is emacs.
- > And emacs is big, slow, and stops regularly to tell you it's
- > `garbage collecting'. This might not be representative of GC in general,
- > but I bet a lot of people think it is.
-
- I see Netscape frequently "pause", telling me that it is looking up a
- name. As Henry Baker has pointed out, that tells us that DNS is slow.
- It can be, in some cases. On a local network, it can be so fast that
- you never see it. Perhaps the answer is simply to never tell the user
- why a program pauses. No more "writing to file" msgs.
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