

Lisp's IDE problem - and a proposed solution - mohamedsa
http://iamsamy.blogspot.com/2008/06/lisps-ide-problem-and-proposed-solution.html

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cconstantine
The main problem I've had has been distribution. To distribute a lisp program
I need to either:

1) Create an executable image that is HUGE, even for small/simple applications

2) Distribute a loadable image and force the users to make sure it's version
matches their runtime (if they even have one, which isn't likely).

Perhaps there is a third option... and if there is I'd love to hear it. But if
you can't distribute the program, whats the point in writing it?

~~~
delackner
I think Allegro has a binary creation process that removes unused code, but at
$600 for a basic license, that is not going to lead to wide adoption.

If people want to see wide adoption of Lisp, a free modern library (Ala Cocoa)
and IDE are needed. Thus far the only entities that have been willing to throw
money at building and giving away such tools for free have been huge companies
that try (Sun) or succeed (Apple) at using hardware sales to monetize the cash
they spend on making such a nice environment.

To truly achieve such a thing would require at this point an organization with
no baggage (NOT the FSF) with donation funding to pay for a large team of
programmers to just get to work doing all that stuff, be it from scratch or by
combining and polishing existing MIT/BSD licensed code.

I doubt this will ever happen.

