newLISP on Snow Leopard

[cormullion]

Does anyone know if newLISP runs OK on Snow Leopard? Is it twice as fast? :)

[cormullion]

Yes. No.

:)

[Jeff]

You would need to use the new compiler to notice any difference, and it would only make a difference (probably) if it were written in objective-c. The "killer" feature of the new compiler (for osx, at any rate) is that it does not always reload shared libraries for each application.

[jazper]

I tried to install newlisp on my new Mac mini today. Everything reports ok, but all I get is the logo: the editor doesn't open. Can someone help? I have checked, and Java 1.6 is running.

Thanks
J

[Lutz]

When you click the applications icon, newLISP-GS starts the Java server guiserver.jar first and displays the splash image then tries to start up the newLISP process. It looks like newLISP never starts or cannot communicate with guiserver.jar.

Open a terminal window and enter the command: newlisp-edit, newlisp-edit is a newLISP script containing the code for the editor. The script communicates with the Java process and starts up guiserver.jar. In the terminal window you can see diagnostic messages which tell more about the start-up process and what could go wrong.

[jazper]

I see it is a year ago, and I have not thanked Lutz for his kind reply. Strangely, after I wrote about my problem, some few logins later, the splash logo thing happened as usual, followed by a perfectly unaided IDE opening without me even entering "newlisp-edit" in a terminal. Go figure. I did nothing to change things. It is as if OS X worked something out in the meantime, but I know that can't be true!

Anyway, thank you Lutz. I had many happy hours playing and working with newLISP on that Mac Mini. I gave it to my daughter eventually, because my chief intention for it was to use it for composing music, using Sibelius. In the event, it crashed several times per day. Avid blamed Apple, and Apple blamed Avid: the usual sorry stuff. Ok, maybe Avid sells more copies of Sibelius to Windows users, so is lax about Apple. Since using it on Win 7, it has not crashed once, though the sound stutters. WHEN Sibelius worked on it, the sound on the Mac was superb.

Otherwise, Win 7 64-bit Pro is a bit of a snail on my new Dell i5. I have yet to test calculation speed, but the perception as a user is that 4GB barely runs Win 7.

It appears that most newLISP users who post screen shots of their efforts are using Apples. Is there something I should know? Having used it on all four of Win XP, Win 7, OS X and Linux (Ubuntu), I enjoy the last most. Apple was next. For some reason, I always find Win a pain to set PATH correctly in: invoking program in Program Files\newlisp, while in c:\users\jazper entails a lot of long quoted paths. I used SUBST under DOS. I guess I am just not motivated to figure an easy way in windows, when things are so easy in OS X and Linux.

Thanks again Lutz, both for your help and for newLISP. I have looked at all sorts of things in the last year: CL/SBCL, Racket, Scala, Clojure, taken second looks at Ruby, PHP, C#. For what I need, which is to produce little, fast Q&Ds (Quick & Dirties) around the office, there is nothing to beat newLISP: I have saved hours and hours of time writing few lines of code, usually to knock text into shape, and sometimes to clean huge database dumps, mostly using the excellent examples in the Introduction to get going.

What a pleasure!

[hilti]

I tried to install newlisp on my new Mac mini today. Everything reports ok, but all I get is the logo: the editor doesn't open. Can someone help?

Hi Jazper!

I've got the same problem when pluggin in my T-Mobile 3G Stick and running their bad programmed Java dial-in software. If I quit this piece of "software", newLISP editor is running great.

Maybe You got some Java apps running on Your Mac mini?

Cheers
Hilti

[jazper]

Thanks, Hilti. Now, I had not thought of that, but that was probably "it". I use a 3G dongle. Now that you mention it, I dimly recall getting a software upgrade for the dongle, and it most likely WAS that that made the difference, and fixing that made OS X appear to load without problems from then on. I had not realised the dongle software was java-ish, but I am sure you are right.

I am still wondering if newLISP users use Apple because of something I don't know! It works anywhere ... so why are most newLISP users on Apple? No flame war wanted! Is it just great minds think alike? :)

[cormullion]

Not sure your observations indicate any bias; perhaps you just hear the Mac users more. It's true that open source enthusiasts are often to be found on Macs; the built-in unix system is important; some just reinstall Linux on their MacBooks...; hardware quality is good; Macs can easily dual boot into Linux and Windows (the reverse is not the case), so if you have just one machine ... ; then there's the iPod iPhone and iPad, which are shaking up the industry...

[xytroxon]

Well, as a Windows user, I think what attracts people to Apple machines are their amazing good looking designs, and of course more importantly, what you find under the hair er. "what you find under the hood"... ;>)




-- xytroxon