Slashdot Mirror

Here's a categorized list of companies successfully using Allegro Common Lisp, along with a couple examples from each; follow the links for more companies and more information:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

Here's a categorized list of companies successfully using Allegro Common Lisp, along with a couple examples from each; follow the links for more companies and more information:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

Here's a categorized list of companies successfully using Allegro Common Lisp, along with a couple examples from each; follow the links for more companies and more information:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

Here's a categorized list of companies successfully using Allegro Common Lisp, along with a couple examples from each; follow the links for more companies and more information:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I am a Lisp developer, and I'm proud to point out that Common Lisp does these tricks, specifically my favourite implementation - Allegro Common Lisp employs all of these features and more.

Please take a look at information available on www.franz.com , and email with any questions you might have.

Oh, and by the way - here are some success stories from a variety of people who have used AllegroCL for their projects (NASA, Microsoft, Square USA, etc.)

I am a Lisp developer, and I'm proud to point out that Common Lisp does these tricks, specifically my favourite implementation - Allegro Common Lisp employs all of these features and more.

Please take a look at information available on www.franz.com , and email with any questions you might have.

Oh, and by the way - here are some success stories from a variety of people who have used AllegroCL for their projects (NASA, Microsoft, Square USA, etc.)

I am a Lisp developer, and I'm proud to point out that Common Lisp does these tricks, specifically my favourite implementation - Allegro Common Lisp employs all of these features and more.

Please take a look at information available on www.franz.com , and email with any questions you might have.

Oh, and by the way - here are some success stories from a variety of people who have used AllegroCL for their projects (NASA, Microsoft, Square USA, etc.)

You can have all those features and many more if you use a commercial Lisp implementation (the free ones have no decent IDE or GUI yet).
If you have a serious budget, take a look at Allegro Common Lisp. The other choice would be LispWorks, which is a little cheaper and without run-time fees.
They both have an excellent IDE and come with Interface Builders using CLIM, meaning your apps run under Windows, Macintosh and Unix (Motif) without a big hassle using native widgets.

Smalltalk seems to fit your criteria, and IBM has an IDE that can run on Linux (there may be others.) The real zinger in your requirements was that "multiple inheritance" thing.

If you want the power of Lisp (it also satisfies your language requirements) with an IDE, checkout Franz's Allegro Composer

Lisp does not favor recursion over iteration, and Lispers do not think that use of variables is a bad habit. You're thinking of Scheme, which is a different language entirely. (But even Schemers don't think variables are bad!) For some information on software written in Lisp, see www.lisp.org and Franz success stories.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I read the comments to get info from the comments themselves, and I don't often want to bother with digging into all the links that say "more info here".

Of course, you're welcome to post a link to www.franz.com as you like.

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

I'm a Lisp programmer (Allegro CL mostly), so naturally I would like to see more books covering Lisp. I'd specifically like to see the following topics covered:

• Network programming with Lisp for a wider variety of protocols
• Advanced tuning with foreign functions/mixed language programming
• Graphics and OpenGL programming with Lisp
• Sound programming with Lisp
• Game programming with Lisp
• Databases in Lisp

I'd really like to find more practical Lisp examples on bookstore shelves.

Oh, and before I hear "Lisp can't do that", here's a short list of Lisp success stories:

• Animation & Graphics (including Square USA and Naughty Dog Software)
• Artificial Intelligence (including Kurzweil and Microsoft Research)
• BioInformatics (including MDL Information Systems)
• B2B & E-Commerce (including ITA Software [powers Orbitz])
• Data Integ. & Mining (including Cadabra/GoTo Shopping)
• EDA/Semiconductor (including AMD and American Microsystems, Inc.)
• Expert Systems (including Univ. of Chicago Infolab and Signal Insurance)
• Finance (including Price Waterhouse Coopers and Cognition Corporation)
• Intelligent Agents (including Fujitsu Limited)
• Knowledge Mgmt (including Design Power, Inc.)
• Mechanical CAD (including Parametric Technologies Corp.)
• Modeling & Simulation (including Boeing and Johnson Engineering)
• Natural Lang. Proc. (including Sony CSL and Stanford University)
• Optimization (including NASA and Space Telescope Institute)
• Research (including Univ. of Southern California and University of Wyoming Applied AI Lab)
• Risk Analysis (including Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Scheduling (including Northwest Airlines and Ascent Technology, Inc.)
• Telecom (including France Telecom R&D and British Telecom Labs)
• Web Authoring (including The Performing Graphics Company and Schema GmbH)

Since I'm a Lisp fiend: while we're on the subject of programming for bioinformatics, I'd like to point out that Allegro Common Lisp has been used by a few folks in the field. Here are two links:

Pangea Systems Inc. (now DoubleTwist) for EcoCyc.

MDL Information Systems to design new drugs.

Since I'm a Lisp fiend: while we're on the subject of programming for bioinformatics, I'd like to point out that Allegro Common Lisp has been used by a few folks in the field. Here are two links:

Pangea Systems Inc. (now DoubleTwist) for EcoCyc.

MDL Information Systems to design new drugs.

Since I'm a Lisp fiend: while we're on the subject of programming for bioinformatics, I'd like to point out that Allegro Common Lisp has been used by a few folks in the field. Here are two links:

Pangea Systems Inc. (now DoubleTwist) for EcoCyc.

MDL Information Systems to design new drugs.

What is LISP bad at? Well, its libraries can be rather weak and nonstandard (although ANSI Common LISP itself comes with a large array of useful functions); GUI stuff, multithreading, and networking all fit in this category and are often implementation specific. (Of course, this is nothing to do with the language itself but just with what tools are available.) Its use for really low level bit-twiddling stuff is somewhat awkward. Iteration in LISP suffers somewhat from being only a little bit more powerful than iteration in C; the upside is you can still combine it with all the other great stuff in LISP, but the downside is that the parenthisis-style syntax, which is so much better for writing macros and functional code, only clutters up iterative code.

Multithreading is found in the commercial Common Lisp environments and in the CMUCL/x86 port. CLOCC maintains several libraries for cross-implementation usage of non-standard features such as networking. CLIM solves the GUI problem, the problem is that there was no free CLIM implementation for a long time due to legal issues. Finally, a free CLIM is being developed: McCLIM and I'm sure they can use help. As for iteration, perhaps your mind has been clouded by Paul Graham; who has an irrational fear of the LOOP macro. The LOOP macro, however, provides one of the most powerful iteration constructs I've seen; and it's not parenthesized like the DO macro is. Example:

(loop for x from 1 to 10 summing x do (format t "~&~A" x))

Prints out a list of numbers from 1 to 10 and the sum of them all at the end.
The equivalent DO:

(let ((sum 0))
(do ((x 1 (1+ x)))
((> x 10) sum)
(incf sum x)
(format t "~&~A" x)))

Also the LOOP macro provides yet more keywords for all sorts of handy features which aren't so easy to do with DO; collecting, appending, finally, initially, if/else, etc... Please read the section in the HyperSpec about LOOP, Section 6.1
I even once wrote a finite-state-machine entirely within a single LOOP macro that processed the Unix mbox format. It's quite nearly a language in itself (speaking of which, FORMAT is in a similar category, except for formatted output instead).

I would argue that CL is better at bit-twiddling than C is. Take a look at the CLHS Section 12.1.1.3.2 and the functions BYTE, LDB, and DPB. It's a different perspective than the C view, but more interesting since you can extract and replace any number of bits that you want. Also it's not dependent on 8 bits per byte.

Still, there are many areas where CL just doesn't have the sheer effort put into the libraries, likely due to the lack of manpower. Particularly in the Free-software category; Lisp has a tradition extending long before the current wave of Free-software and while many commercial vendors will provide good support and lots of libraries, the Free implementations often lack this. Many Lisp programmers use the commercial Lisps and have the features they want; if not they ask/pay the vendor to implement them. Another issue is that Common Lisp is not Unix-centric, unlike *ahem* most popular languages today. CL was designed to be workable in any environment, so the designers could not take shortcuts with things like pathnames, executable formats, system libraries, or other system-dependent issues. After all; Common Lisp was conceived in the era of the Lisp Machine. Unix was just another OS in the vast array. Finally, it is unfair to compare the Common Lisp standard against a single-implementation language such as Perl. Standards cost $$$$$ and require a great deal of effort and responsibility. If a Common Lisp implementation does not comply with the standard then it is at fault. But with Perl, whatever Larry Wall does goes. Even if it breaks all your code; too bad.

Some interesting sites with regard to libraries:

• CLiki
• cCLan

(Back to the OP's topic) Franz's Success Stories has plenty of examples of Lisp applications. Franz develops Allegro Common Lisp, a popular commercial CL.

There are quite a few companies using Lisp for quite a few different things in the "Success Stories" section of the Franz website (makers of Allegro Common Lisp). Examples include the Final Fantasy movie, Crash Bandicoot, Orbitz (as above), and tons of other places that tend to surprise people who are unfamiliar with Lisp.

Here are the categories the Franz site lists:

• Quotes
• Animation & Graphics
• Artificial Intelligence
• BioInformatics
• B2B & E-Commerce
• Data Integ. & Mining
• EDA
• Expert Systems
• Finance
• Intelligent Agents
• Knowledge Mgmt
• Mechanical CAD
• Modeling & Simulation
• Natural Lang. Proc.
• Optimization
• Research
• Risk Analysis
• Scheduling
• Telecom
• Web Authoring

There are quite a few companies using Lisp for quite a few different things in the "Success Stories" section of the Franz website (makers of Allegro Common Lisp). Examples include the Final Fantasy movie, Crash Bandicoot, Orbitz (as above), and tons of other places that tend to surprise people who are unfamiliar with Lisp.

Here are the categories the Franz site lists:

• Quotes
• Animation & Graphics
• Artificial Intelligence
• BioInformatics
• B2B & E-Commerce
• Data Integ. & Mining
• EDA
• Expert Systems
• Finance
• Intelligent Agents
• Knowledge Mgmt
• Mechanical CAD
• Modeling & Simulation
• Natural Lang. Proc.
• Optimization
• Research
• Risk Analysis
• Scheduling
• Telecom
• Web Authoring

Since the day I joined Franz Inc. as the new Webmaster, I have been writing more code than at any previous point in my career. I have become immersed in Lisp programming, specifically AllegroCL, which I found to be a stimulating challenge to learn. I discovered that writing Lisp is sheer joy to anyone who has ever been frustrated out of programming by the tedium of obligatory declaration of data types, allocation and de-allocation of memory and the like, or simply by the time they take to learn. To finalize my education in AllegroCL, I was tasked with replacing the Franz webserver with AllegroServe. Though I am not a slow student, I made many mistakes and found that the simplified testing of code via the AllegroCL debugger and the ability to modify a program while it is running were indispensable tools both in my education and software troubleshooting. Making use of these features, I have found that adding new code to a program is remarkably easy to do, even when that new code requires making significant structural changes. In the end, I'm always left with a program which runs as quickly as any others I use and exhibits enhanced stability and security features while maintaining a reasonable memory footprint.

Among my first tasks at Franz was familiarizing myself with Allegro Common Lisp. My interest in Lisp's long, rich and diverse history was one of the chief reasons I applied for the job, so I was happy to oblige. I've always found the history of computing to be of great interest, and Lisp has been there throughout most of the last 50 years (of currently-used languages, only Fortran predates its nativity), so I find its endurance of especial interest. Lisp has undergone a process of evolution during its lifetime spawning several dialects, one of which is Common Lisp; AllegroCL is an implementation of Common Lisp.

The aspects which I find most satisfying in AllegroCL include automatic memory management and dynamic typing of data. Both of these features eliminate a tremendous amount of tedium from coding and allow me to get more work done in less time. I was never a serious programmer before I was introduced to Lisp, but now I've found a passion which outweighs my penchant for computer gaming. In the past, I would frequently spend much of my free time mastering the newest reason to own a 3d-accelerated video card, but recently I've found that I have more to show afterwards if I write code for fun, as evidenced by the chatroom software I wrote as an educational exercise which can be seen in production on my server at home, here (running on AllegroServe). It took a little longer to write the chat software than it usually takes me to master a new game, but at a total of 16 hours, it was less than half the time that most games take to complete. I began working more and producing a tremendously increased level of output, all without the slightest increase in my stress level.

After spending a couple of months with Franz, familiarizing myself with my responsibilities as Webmaster while learning Allegro Common Lisp, I was tasked with converting the Franz website from Apache webserver to an AllegroServe-based solution, which entailed writing a webserver which used AllegroServe at its core and provided all of the features which I found in Apache, while adding a few site-specific features. AllegroServe's chief developer, John Foderaro, and I were able to complete this task in time for the recent release of AllegroCL 6.1. The speed of development under AllegroCL was due in no small part to the ACL debugger of which I made prodigious use early-on. The ability to inspect running code and make modifications at the point of failure not only made it a simple matter to identify and fix bugs, but it was also an invaluable educational tool. Initially, I wrote bad code - lots of bad code - but every mistake I made was immediately obviated and resolved through liberal application of this handy tool. The ability to directly interact with data in a running program provided education that extended beyond the scope of any single programming language, my ability to visualize software structure and the flow of data was greatly enhanced.

After a few weeks of use, I began to realize that I wasn't having more than one bug in my code every few days - needless to say, I was elated. Until this point, I was working on relatively simple aspects of the webserver, such as the Franz menu generation, customer survey, and trial download sections. This accelerated rate of learning gave me enough positive feedback that I felt comfortable taking on more ambitious segments of the project. After I progressed through the header, menu, and footer-wrapping code which provides the interface to my earlier menu generator's output on Franz' "lhtml" pages, I came to the logging facility. By far, writing the code to manage the log handling was the most challenging aspect of the webserver's design so far. It was at this point that John and I came to realize that we would need to significantly enhance the virtual-host capabilities of AllegroServe to provide such services as separate access and error log streams for each individual virtual host. Despite the challenge, John managed to implement these changes in less time than it took me to write the code to handle formatting the logfiles in a manner compatible with Apache's output, which Franz especially required to enable the continued use of certain website log analysis tools. The two of us had completely changed the manner in which AllegroServe handled logging in a mere two days. John also eventually added excellent support for running standard CGI programs which would have their own log streams, and I made use of the added functionality to support a "cgiroot" which allows the Apache-like feature of being able to specify a path in which cgi programs will reside while sending any cgi log output to the vhost error log. I would encourage any current Apache users who wish to try-out AllegroServe to make use of this feature when configuring a server, it makes CGI installation and use a snap. After I'd written the bulk of my contribution to our system, I hit upon another necessary feature, the ability to include in-tree access control files akin to ".htaccess" files under Apache. This was a significantly more complex challenge than the logging and virtual host modifications John and I had previously added, due to the depth of the AllegroServe feature-set we would have to make available for modification within these files, and the associated security concerns. This obstacle took a fair amount of time to surmount, John made significant changes throughout AllegroServe, and we went through a great deal of testing to ensure that no security risks had been created. In the end, we were satisfied that we had made a very worthwhile addition to the webserver.

I continued writing interface and configuration code and enlisted John's expert help whenever I would find a feature AllegroServe lacked, and we concluded the conversion with a version of the Franz webserver that has only required minor modifications since. When I had ironed-out any remaining bugs, of which there were fortunately very few, John assisted me in profiling our code to assess its speed bottlenecks. After heavily load-testing the server, we discovered that the slowest part of the code was that used to check the timestamps on files for the purposes of updating our cache. This was greatly satisfying because the speed of this code was so fast that we could not consider this to be a problem. We also discovered that there was an excessive memory waste within a few seemingly clean segments of code, we were using a dynamically-sized string creation function which relies upon the multiple different data types for the sake of convenience. We converted this to make use of a large fixed-size array which would contain the string, even if it grew as long as it possibly could, and halved the server's memory usage. Bandwidth load testing showed that we had an extremely fast server - we were able to utilize around 850-900KB/sec. across a 10 megabit network when running the system on an Intel Celeron 533. Additionally, thanks to our prior memory-usage enhancement which came-up during profiling, we were only using a total of 30MB of RAM for the webserver, cache and all.

I am very satisfied to have had a hand in such a successful project, especially successful considering that I was a rank novice programmer when I began work on it. The speed with which I learned to program in AllegroCL was an entirely new phenomenon to me, one which has enriched my computer usage and allowed me to express my ideas for software in code, something I never had the capability of doing in the past due to my unwillingness to suffer through the tedium programming had historically presented me with. When I found myself attaining a satisfactory level of programming ability, I was struck by the ease of writing clean and modular code on the first attempt. Augmenting that ability, the ease of adding and restructuring AllegroCL code to a running or non-running program, especially with the aid of the ACL debugger, greatly decreased both my development time and my frustration while further enhancing my level of programming skill. I have learned a great deal about Lisp, AllegroCL, and programming in general over the course of this project, and without it I would not have had the chance to make such a satisfying acquaintance with Allegro Common Lisp, which has become my programming language of choice.

Since the day I joined Franz Inc. as the new Webmaster, I have been writing more code than at any previous point in my career. I have become immersed in Lisp programming, specifically AllegroCL, which I found to be a stimulating challenge to learn. I discovered that writing Lisp is sheer joy to anyone who has ever been frustrated out of programming by the tedium of obligatory declaration of data types, allocation and de-allocation of memory and the like, or simply by the time they take to learn. To finalize my education in AllegroCL, I was tasked with replacing the Franz webserver with AllegroServe. Though I am not a slow student, I made many mistakes and found that the simplified testing of code via the AllegroCL debugger and the ability to modify a program while it is running were indispensable tools both in my education and software troubleshooting. Making use of these features, I have found that adding new code to a program is remarkably easy to do, even when that new code requires making significant structural changes. In the end, I'm always left with a program which runs as quickly as any others I use and exhibits enhanced stability and security features while maintaining a reasonable memory footprint.

Among my first tasks at Franz was familiarizing myself with Allegro Common Lisp. My interest in Lisp's long, rich and diverse history was one of the chief reasons I applied for the job, so I was happy to oblige. I've always found the history of computing to be of great interest, and Lisp has been there throughout most of the last 50 years (of currently-used languages, only Fortran predates its nativity), so I find its endurance of especial interest. Lisp has undergone a process of evolution during its lifetime spawning several dialects, one of which is Common Lisp; AllegroCL is an implementation of Common Lisp.

The aspects which I find most satisfying in AllegroCL include automatic memory management and dynamic typing of data. Both of these features eliminate a tremendous amount of tedium from coding and allow me to get more work done in less time. I was never a serious programmer before I was introduced to Lisp, but now I've found a passion which outweighs my penchant for computer gaming. In the past, I would frequently spend much of my free time mastering the newest reason to own a 3d-accelerated video card, but recently I've found that I have more to show afterwards if I write code for fun, as evidenced by the chatroom software I wrote as an educational exercise which can be seen in production on my server at home, here (running on AllegroServe). It took a little longer to write the chat software than it usually takes me to master a new game, but at a total of 16 hours, it was less than half the time that most games take to complete. I began working more and producing a tremendously increased level of output, all without the slightest increase in my stress level.

After spending a couple of months with Franz, familiarizing myself with my responsibilities as Webmaster while learning Allegro Common Lisp, I was tasked with converting the Franz website from Apache webserver to an AllegroServe-based solution, which entailed writing a webserver which used AllegroServe at its core and provided all of the features which I found in Apache, while adding a few site-specific features. AllegroServe's chief developer, John Foderaro, and I were able to complete this task in time for the recent release of AllegroCL 6.1. The speed of development under AllegroCL was due in no small part to the ACL debugger of which I made prodigious use early-on. The ability to inspect running code and make modifications at the point of failure not only made it a simple matter to identify and fix bugs, but it was also an invaluable educational tool. Initially, I wrote bad code - lots of bad code - but every mistake I made was immediately obviated and resolved through liberal application of this handy tool. The ability to directly interact with data in a running program provided education that extended beyond the scope of any single programming language, my ability to visualize software structure and the flow of data was greatly enhanced.

After a few weeks of use, I began to realize that I wasn't having more than one bug in my code every few days - needless to say, I was elated. Until this point, I was working on relatively simple aspects of the webserver, such as the Franz menu generation, customer survey, and trial download sections. This accelerated rate of learning gave me enough positive feedback that I felt comfortable taking on more ambitious segments of the project. After I progressed through the header, menu, and footer-wrapping code which provides the interface to my earlier menu generator's output on Franz' "lhtml" pages, I came to the logging facility. By far, writing the code to manage the log handling was the most challenging aspect of the webserver's design so far. It was at this point that John and I came to realize that we would need to significantly enhance the virtual-host capabilities of AllegroServe to provide such services as separate access and error log streams for each individual virtual host. Despite the challenge, John managed to implement these changes in less time than it took me to write the code to handle formatting the logfiles in a manner compatible with Apache's output, which Franz especially required to enable the continued use of certain website log analysis tools. The two of us had completely changed the manner in which AllegroServe handled logging in a mere two days. John also eventually added excellent support for running standard CGI programs which would have their own log streams, and I made use of the added functionality to support a "cgiroot" which allows the Apache-like feature of being able to specify a path in which cgi programs will reside while sending any cgi log output to the vhost error log. I would encourage any current Apache users who wish to try-out AllegroServe to make use of this feature when configuring a server, it makes CGI installation and use a snap. After I'd written the bulk of my contribution to our system, I hit upon another necessary feature, the ability to include in-tree access control files akin to ".htaccess" files under Apache. This was a significantly more complex challenge than the logging and virtual host modifications John and I had previously added, due to the depth of the AllegroServe feature-set we would have to make available for modification within these files, and the associated security concerns. This obstacle took a fair amount of time to surmount, John made significant changes throughout AllegroServe, and we went through a great deal of testing to ensure that no security risks had been created. In the end, we were satisfied that we had made a very worthwhile addition to the webserver.

I continued writing interface and configuration code and enlisted John's expert help whenever I would find a feature AllegroServe lacked, and we concluded the conversion with a version of the Franz webserver that has only required minor modifications since. When I had ironed-out any remaining bugs, of which there were fortunately very few, John assisted me in profiling our code to assess its speed bottlenecks. After heavily load-testing the server, we discovered that the slowest part of the code was that used to check the timestamps on files for the purposes of updating our cache. This was greatly satisfying because the speed of this code was so fast that we could not consider this to be a problem. We also discovered that there was an excessive memory waste within a few seemingly clean segments of code, we were using a dynamically-sized string creation function which relies upon the multiple different data types for the sake of convenience. We converted this to make use of a large fixed-size array which would contain the string, even if it grew as long as it possibly could, and halved the server's memory usage. Bandwidth load testing showed that we had an extremely fast server - we were able to utilize around 850-900KB/sec. across a 10 megabit network when running the system on an Intel Celeron 533. Additionally, thanks to our prior memory-usage enhancement which came-up during profiling, we were only using a total of 30MB of RAM for the webserver, cache and all.

I am very satisfied to have had a hand in such a successful project, especially successful considering that I was a rank novice programmer when I began work on it. The speed with which I learned to program in AllegroCL was an entirely new phenomenon to me, one which has enriched my computer usage and allowed me to express my ideas for software in code, something I never had the capability of doing in the past due to my unwillingness to suffer through the tedium programming had historically presented me with. When I found myself attaining a satisfactory level of programming ability, I was struck by the ease of writing clean and modular code on the first attempt. Augmenting that ability, the ease of adding and restructuring AllegroCL code to a running or non-running program, especially with the aid of the ACL debugger, greatly decreased both my development time and my frustration while further enhancing my level of programming skill. I have learned a great deal about Lisp, AllegroCL, and programming in general over the course of this project, and without it I would not have had the chance to make such a satisfying acquaintance with Allegro Common Lisp, which has become my programming language of choice.

Since the day I joined Franz Inc. as the new Webmaster, I have been writing more code than at any previous point in my career. I have become immersed in Lisp programming, specifically AllegroCL, which I found to be a stimulating challenge to learn. I discovered that writing Lisp is sheer joy to anyone who has ever been frustrated out of programming by the tedium of obligatory declaration of data types, allocation and de-allocation of memory and the like, or simply by the time they take to learn. To finalize my education in AllegroCL, I was tasked with replacing the Franz webserver with AllegroServe. Though I am not a slow student, I made many mistakes and found that the simplified testing of code via the AllegroCL debugger and the ability to modify a program while it is running were indispensable tools both in my education and software troubleshooting. Making use of these features, I have found that adding new code to a program is remarkably easy to do, even when that new code requires making significant structural changes. In the end, I'm always left with a program which runs as quickly as any others I use and exhibits enhanced stability and security features while maintaining a reasonable memory footprint.

Among my first tasks at Franz was familiarizing myself with Allegro Common Lisp. My interest in Lisp's long, rich and diverse history was one of the chief reasons I applied for the job, so I was happy to oblige. I've always found the history of computing to be of great interest, and Lisp has been there throughout most of the last 50 years (of currently-used languages, only Fortran predates its nativity), so I find its endurance of especial interest. Lisp has undergone a process of evolution during its lifetime spawning several dialects, one of which is Common Lisp; AllegroCL is an implementation of Common Lisp.

The aspects which I find most satisfying in AllegroCL include automatic memory management and dynamic typing of data. Both of these features eliminate a tremendous amount of tedium from coding and allow me to get more work done in less time. I was never a serious programmer before I was introduced to Lisp, but now I've found a passion which outweighs my penchant for computer gaming. In the past, I would frequently spend much of my free time mastering the newest reason to own a 3d-accelerated video card, but recently I've found that I have more to show afterwards if I write code for fun, as evidenced by the chatroom software I wrote as an educational exercise which can be seen in production on my server at home, here (running on AllegroServe). It took a little longer to write the chat software than it usually takes me to master a new game, but at a total of 16 hours, it was less than half the time that most games take to complete. I began working more and producing a tremendously increased level of output, all without the slightest increase in my stress level.

After spending a couple of months with Franz, familiarizing myself with my responsibilities as Webmaster while learning Allegro Common Lisp, I was tasked with converting the Franz website from Apache webserver to an AllegroServe-based solution, which entailed writing a webserver which used AllegroServe at its core and provided all of the features which I found in Apache, while adding a few site-specific features. AllegroServe's chief developer, John Foderaro, and I were able to complete this task in time for the recent release of AllegroCL 6.1. The speed of development under AllegroCL was due in no small part to the ACL debugger of which I made prodigious use early-on. The ability to inspect running code and make modifications at the point of failure not only made it a simple matter to identify and fix bugs, but it was also an invaluable educational tool. Initially, I wrote bad code - lots of bad code - but every mistake I made was immediately obviated and resolved through liberal application of this handy tool. The ability to directly interact with data in a running program provided education that extended beyond the scope of any single programming language, my ability to visualize software structure and the flow of data was greatly enhanced.

After a few weeks of use, I began to realize that I wasn't having more than one bug in my code every few days - needless to say, I was elated. Until this point, I was working on relatively simple aspects of the webserver, such as the Franz menu generation, customer survey, and trial download sections. This accelerated rate of learning gave me enough positive feedback that I felt comfortable taking on more ambitious segments of the project. After I progressed through the header, menu, and footer-wrapping code which provides the interface to my earlier menu generator's output on Franz' "lhtml" pages, I came to the logging facility. By far, writing the code to manage the log handling was the most challenging aspect of the webserver's design so far. It was at this point that John and I came to realize that we would need to significantly enhance the virtual-host capabilities of AllegroServe to provide such services as separate access and error log streams for each individual virtual host. Despite the challenge, John managed to implement these changes in less time than it took me to write the code to handle formatting the logfiles in a manner compatible with Apache's output, which Franz especially required to enable the continued use of certain website log analysis tools. The two of us had completely changed the manner in which AllegroServe handled logging in a mere two days. John also eventually added excellent support for running standard CGI programs which would have their own log streams, and I made use of the added functionality to support a "cgiroot" which allows the Apache-like feature of being able to specify a path in which cgi programs will reside while sending any cgi log output to the vhost error log. I would encourage any current Apache users who wish to try-out AllegroServe to make use of this feature when configuring a server, it makes CGI installation and use a snap. After I'd written the bulk of my contribution to our system, I hit upon another necessary feature, the ability to include in-tree access control files akin to ".htaccess" files under Apache. This was a significantly more complex challenge than the logging and virtual host modifications John and I had previously added, due to the depth of the AllegroServe feature-set we would have to make available for modification within these files, and the associated security concerns. This obstacle took a fair amount of time to surmount, John made significant changes throughout AllegroServe, and we went through a great deal of testing to ensure that no security risks had been created. In the end, we were satisfied that we had made a very worthwhile addition to the webserver.

I continued writing interface and configuration code and enlisted John's expert help whenever I would find a feature AllegroServe lacked, and we concluded the conversion with a version of the Franz webserver that has only required minor modifications since. When I had ironed-out any remaining bugs, of which there were fortunately very few, John assisted me in profiling our code to assess its speed bottlenecks. After heavily load-testing the server, we discovered that the slowest part of the code was that used to check the timestamps on files for the purposes of updating our cache. This was greatly satisfying because the speed of this code was so fast that we could not consider this to be a problem. We also discovered that there was an excessive memory waste within a few seemingly clean segments of code, we were using a dynamically-sized string creation function which relies upon the multiple different data types for the sake of convenience. We converted this to make use of a large fixed-size array which would contain the string, even if it grew as long as it possibly could, and halved the server's memory usage. Bandwidth load testing showed that we had an extremely fast server - we were able to utilize around 850-900KB/sec. across a 10 megabit network when running the system on an Intel Celeron 533. Additionally, thanks to our prior memory-usage enhancement which came-up during profiling, we were only using a total of 30MB of RAM for the webserver, cache and all.

I am very satisfied to have had a hand in such a successful project, especially successful considering that I was a rank novice programmer when I began work on it. The speed with which I learned to program in AllegroCL was an entirely new phenomenon to me, one which has enriched my computer usage and allowed me to express my ideas for software in code, something I never had the capability of doing in the past due to my unwillingness to suffer through the tedium programming had historically presented me with. When I found myself attaining a satisfactory level of programming ability, I was struck by the ease of writing clean and modular code on the first attempt. Augmenting that ability, the ease of adding and restructuring AllegroCL code to a running or non-running program, especially with the aid of the ACL debugger, greatly decreased both my development time and my frustration while further enhancing my level of programming skill. I have learned a great deal about Lisp, AllegroCL, and programming in general over the course of this project, and without it I would not have had the chance to make such a satisfying acquaintance with Allegro Common Lisp, which has become my programming language of choice.

you have an extra space in that url... here's the correct one

Lisp doesn't need to be slow at all. You're thinking of the old 70's Lisp, which was usually interpreted and ran slowly. Today's Lisp implementations can also be compiled in addition interpreted, which results in a big performance boost (lagging only slightly behind C, but faster then Java). Commercial Lisps capable of compiling are for example Allegro CL and LispWorks.
This isn't limited to the commercial ones: CMUCL and SBCL do also compile to native code. The compilers are optimizing (you can choose between variying degrees of Speed, Safety, Debugability and Compile Speed) and you can even enter Assembler code or disassemble single expressions.

nice examples of the LISP OOP used in engineering are just a hyperlink away
alternatively you could give a random website a hit just by clicking here... it would really make their day :)

A lot of people have been suggesting Java, and just as many have been debunking it.

I know this is a C/C++/Perl/Java bigot crowd, so I'll keep this short.

What about Common Lisp or Smalltalk? Both are quite portable, and reasonably fast. Common Lisp can even be fully compiled to machine code. They both fill all of the other requirements.

Two notable implementations of CL are CMUCL (Free) and Allegro CL (free trial, commercial- but solid).

As far as Smalltalk, the notable implementations for your project are VisualWorks and IBM's VisualAge for Smalltalk. Couple summers ago I worked at a shop which was heavily into VA/ST, and it was a pretty awesome system. Core of their business, and we're talking about a pretty big insurance company.

Here are some, and some more, and a few others.

Please feel free to drop me a line in email with any suggestions you have on what you need froma book, since I'm working on several and could use your thoughtful input.

By the way, regarding success stories, I think there are several issues here:

First, for some issues where Lisp could be used or a "commodity" language could be used, the market seeks a commodity. You can hardly blame it and I can't either.

Second, for those issues that Lisp could solve and others can't, Lisp has different strengths than other languages and vice versa, so it's hardly surprising its success stories lie in different areas where you might not be looking, so that may not be why you don't see them.

Third, business success stories are about making money, not about promoting Lisp. If Red Hat or some other Linux or open source company went bankrupt, would it be the technology's fault or the managements? But who would get blamed. IBM could fall and people could blame it on the new Linux alliance they have. Scapegoats are handy. This could make the name Linux unpopular. Would it invalidate the tool? I think not. Might businesses who wanted to keep using the tool decide reasonably not to mention the use of the tool when advertising? Quite likely, I think. I know this happens in the Lisp community. Companies that use Lisp want to focus on their business claims in marketing, and can't risk the potential liability of mentioning a name that has become unpopular (note I didn't say "a technology that has become useless").

I think it's been long enough since AI Winter and the attachment of the "bad name" to Lisp and I'm encouraging people to come clean and start to do like Intel does with its "Intel Inside" campaign. People don't think Lisp is being used because they don't see Lisp is being used. You're right this is an impediment. But it's one that hasn't happened casually--there have been good reasons for it--reasons that could befall any technology, not just us.

My company proudly, and at some commercial risk, displays that it uses Lisp. Commercial risk of two kinds. Some people might not like Lisp. And some people might think I'm a starry-eyed Lisp evangelist more intent on pushing the language than solving their business problem. The former is a self-fulfilling prophecy that can only be changed by using Lisp and showing it can be liked. The latter is a challenge to me to make sure I do stay focused on people's business needs first and keep the related Lisp evangelism second.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to plod through this discussion to the point of giving us a chance, and for documenting your thoughts. It's been very interesting to me, and I'm sure to others in our community as well. I know the Lisp marketing departments are reading these conversations even if they are not speaking directly. Well-articulated positions, pro and con, are what they're seeking, and what they've gotten here.

Re: One's choice of language has nothing to do with one's intelligence.

Neither does one programmers's choice of application area have anything to do with a language's suitability for other things. Go to Franz's success stories page for a list of Lisp success stories. But please don't assume this is an exhaustive list, and please don't assume Lisp is only useful for Animation and Graphics, AI, Bioinformatics, B2B and Ecommerce, Data Mining, EDA/Semiconductor applications, Expert Systems, Finance, Intelligent Agents, Knowledge Management, Mechanical CAD, Modeling and Simulation, Natural Language, Optimization, Research, Risk Analysis, Scheduling, Telecom, and Web Authoring just because these are the only things they happened to list. Common Lisp really is a general language capable of a lot more than these few incidental application areas, even if this web page doesn't totally bring that out.

Re: Lisp does indeed seem to have more than its fair share of elitists, however.

Your use of the word "seem" of course makes this a statement about you and your ability to perceive, not a factual statement about the world. If you had made this a factual statement about the world, I'd ask to know your source of statistics and the nature of your accounting techniques to make sure you were not applying any kind fo selective bias or personal opinion. But fortunately, that won't be necessary.

I'm also not really sure why elitism of individual users is an issue. Languages are not elitist, people are. And I think that's just a sometimes side-effect of passion (unless you're making a claim that something in the language semantics forces this, a claim that would require more documentation than you've given). Are there languages that don't attract passionate people? I'd be more afraid of a language that didn't inspire passion than one that did.

Sure, you can find a Java implementation of a word processor, but will it last as long as Emacs? Is it as flexible? Is it as customizable? Is it as powerful? An Emacs based on Common Lisp (instead of its own crippled Lisp) would be even more of an improvement.

Any Java "word processor" is going to have a hard time beating MS Word at its own game. Emacs, however, thrives by playing another game, the "text editor" game. And it wins.

Lisp has toolkits like Common Lisp Interface Manager (CLIM) which are much more than simple layers to create windows with widgets. I can't even come up with a concise description of how different the Lisp idea is. (Some of this is my lack of practical experience with CLIM. I don't program GUI applications.)

Java is fine for relatively simple, solved problems (like GUI word processors). Lisp is for horrendously complex, hard-to-solve problems like managing logistics for airlines. Or bioinformatics

Or managing information in complex investigations and audits.

You'll notice that all of these are created to solve real-world problems, where it might not be obvious how a computer could help you. Word processing and 3D-shooters are all very securely "inside the box" of what computers are known to do, and have been done many times. Lisp is for taking on the world, forging into new territory, and kicking the world's ass. If you want to stay safe and do "yet another" of the same old thing, maybe Java is all you need.

Sure, you can find a Java implementation of a word processor, but will it last as long as Emacs? Is it as flexible? Is it as customizable? Is it as powerful? An Emacs based on Common Lisp (instead of its own crippled Lisp) would be even more of an improvement.

Any Java "word processor" is going to have a hard time beating MS Word at its own game. Emacs, however, thrives by playing another game, the "text editor" game. And it wins.

Lisp has toolkits like Common Lisp Interface Manager (CLIM) which are much more than simple layers to create windows with widgets. I can't even come up with a concise description of how different the Lisp idea is. (Some of this is my lack of practical experience with CLIM. I don't program GUI applications.)

Java is fine for relatively simple, solved problems (like GUI word processors). Lisp is for horrendously complex, hard-to-solve problems like managing logistics for airlines. Or bioinformatics

Or managing information in complex investigations and audits.

You'll notice that all of these are created to solve real-world problems, where it might not be obvious how a computer could help you. Word processing and 3D-shooters are all very securely "inside the box" of what computers are known to do, and have been done many times. Lisp is for taking on the world, forging into new territory, and kicking the world's ass. If you want to stay safe and do "yet another" of the same old thing, maybe Java is all you need.

"...especially www.franz.com--list commercial customers who have been satisfied with developing software in Common Lisp."

Here's a link to the "Success Stories" section of www.franz.com - I believe that many people will find these to be particularly surprising, but that's a prejudice I'll attempt to debunk through action rather than words.