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``But there are software companies with deeper MA roots...''

You mean, you'd rather have Symbolics on the board?

For those who don't know: Symbolics was a spin-off of MIT that made Lisp machines. They had a fairly aggressive policy on intellectual property, which basically drained brains and knowledge away from MIT and their competitor LMI, another MIT spin-off that made Lisp machines. This is what motivated Richard Stallman to start GNU (after furiously working at LMI to compete with Symbolics).

Eventually, LMI went under, and Symbolics is only officially still alive. The Lisp machine IP has been a big mess for years, most of it basically lost, because no-one is in a position to remove the intellectual property restrictions. However, recently some source code for one of the old Lisp machines has been released by MIT, bringing back some life.

I was originally going to title this "Symbolics is Dying", but it turns out Symbolics is still around, selling things like Macsyma, just not making Lisp Machines any more.

"What about the people of Slashdot? Where do you feel more productive, in Linux? Windows? DOS? Mac OS X? "

None of the above.

You can still buy Macsyma from Symbolics.

Personally, I've used Macintosh Common Lisp (now from Digitool) since it was available from Apple, but I've tried Lispworks (since that's what I use on a Linux box at work), and CLISP of course. Most of the other versions, including Franz's, I've used in the past on other platforms (Sun) since I lost my beloved Symbolics box. MCL was by far the best experience under OS9 and prior, though the user interface elements haven't completely tracked the change to OS X, though I usually use CLIM anyway for code portability so we're really just talking look and feel issues. The Xanalys product is very nice, the demo is pretty unrestricted (just the continuous time to use it, and inability to dump images so you need to load up your system after you start - pretty reasonable for what you get), and the full unrestricted version isn't too expensive.

If you're just starting out and want to poke around, I'd have to recommend Xanalys personal as the best bang for the buck, since you get a pretty nice IDE with it (though Digitool's might be easier to learn if you're used to OS 9). Once you get to the point of needing to dump applications, you can either spend the money to upgrade to professional, or use one of the free lisps to dump images. Your main limitation in these alternatives will be the user interface, as that is generally unique to the implementation unless you use CLIM (and CLIM is not free) or something like Garnet, neither of which will give you something very mac-like.

Personally, I've used (now from Digitool) since it was available from Apple, but I've tried Lispworks (since that's what I use on a Linux box at work), and CLISP of course. Most of the other versions, including Franz's, I've used in the past on other platforms (Sun) since I lost my beloved box. MCL was by far the best experience under OS9 and prior, though the user interface elements haven't completely tracked the change to OS X, though I usually use CLIM anyway for code portability so we're really just talking look and feel issues. The Xanalys product is very nice, the demo is pretty unrestricted (just the continuous time to use it, and inability to dump images so you need to load up your system after you start - pretty reasonable for what you get), and the full unrestricted version isn't too expensive.

If you're just starting out and want to poke around, I'd have to recommend Xanalys personal as the best bang for the buck, since you get a pretty nice IDE with it (though Digitool's might be easier to learn if you're used to OS 9). Once you get to the point of needing to dump applications, you can either spend the money to upgrade to professional, or use one of the free lisps to dump images. Your main limitation in these alternatives will be the user interface, as that is generally unique to the implementation unless you use CLIM (and CLIM is not free) or something like Garnet, neither of which will give you something very mac-like.

Check out Symbolics. They sell the old Lisp Machine software
ported to a microcoded emulator that runs on DEC/Compaq/nobody Alpha hardware. You can also still find old Lisp Machines for sale occasionally. They're still pretty sweet.

Symbolics is actually extremely relevant as one of the organizations indirectly responsible for the creation of the Free Software Foundation; Richard Stallman points to Symbolics hiring away nearly all of the hackers from the AI lab , this being one of the events that led to RMS' later actions.

A number of projects have since tried to build environments with tightly-integrated Lisps; none have been much more than curiosities.

The other major linkage is that the bulk of the members of the Unix Haters "cabal" were folks that hated Unix not simply in abstract, but rather in comparison to Lisp environments like Symbolics/Genera.

I'm not sure how this all would connect to the "Anti-Lisp" notions of the Anonymous Coward. Just as the Unix Haters Handbook presents very little about what they would propose as a preferable alternative to Unix, the AC doesn't present any information as to what he would prefer to Lisp.

Aaaaaah, the Lisp Machine. The forgotten ideal.

The Lisp Machine. The first personal workstation. Bleeding-edge technology under your fingertips and yours alone. The programmer, the user, the administrator: the master of your system.

The Lisp Machine. From user interface specification all the way down to on-chip microcode, all is Lisp. Everything is an s-expression, always so wonderfully manipulable.

The Lisp Machine. A great vision of software and hardware working together in the perfect harmony of the Tao.

The Lisp Machine. Often envisioned, often imitated, never surpassed.

Here are a few people's pages about Lisp Machines, for the curious (Some links are MIA; can anyone find a new valid address for them?):

• Symbolics machines: Peter Paine | Bob Kerns | [MIA] Rainer Joswig | dr. P.M.E. De Bra | Ralf Moeller | PT Withington
• LMI machines: [MIA] Joe Marshall
• There were other LISP Machines: Ti Explorers, Xerox Dandelions, etc... Check the FAQ for comp.lang.lisp, make a Google search, etc.

Here are a few people's pages about Lisp Machines, for the curious (Some links are MIA; can anyone find a new valid address for them?):

• Symbolics machines: Peter Paine | Bob Kerns | [MIA] Rainer Joswig | dr. P.M.E. De Bra | Ralf Moeller | PT Withington
• LMI machines: [MIA] Joe Marshall
• There were other LISP Machines: Ti Explorers, Xerox Dandelions, etc... Check the FAQ for comp.lang.lisp, make a Google search, etc.

I imagine you're thinking of the Symbolics Lisp machine. It was/is indeed a very nice machine, running an operating system called Genera.

The user interface was quite special, indeed. It can best be explained as "XMLTerm on speed". It was basically a command line interface, but pretty much everything could be clicked on with a mouse. A status line on the bottom of the screen showed what different mouse button actions would do to the "object" currently pointed at -- very helpful.

Lots of information can be found on the Sy mbolics Lisp Machine Museum.

Oh, and by the way: Symbolics (the company) is currently developing and delivering Open Genera for Alpha-CPUs. :-)

Even worse is the "standard template library". That has become a playground for language fanatics. People are trying to implement LISP lambda-expressions using C++ templates, which is an example of using the wrong tool to implement a mediocre idea. The STL has resulted in a number of programming paradigms that are very complicated, bug-prone, and involve coordination of items far apart in the source text.

"Patterns" are being promoted as an answer to some of these problems. Just follow the ritual, avoid the taboos, and it will work. Don't try to understand why.

Anyone remember how the Symbolics LISP gurus messed up Common LISP, by insisting that all the crap their specialized hardware could support should go into the language and libraries? The STL crowd is doing that to C++. It's not good.

Humor item of the day: The Symbolics machines had the "MIT Space Cadet" keyboard, with a SHIFT key, a CNTL key, a TOP key, a META key, a SUPER key, and a HYPER key, all used as shift keys and all usable together. This came from a joke attempt at MIT to outdo Stanford, where the SAIL machine had TOP and META. Symbolics shipped that keyboard standard to customers. Symbolics is out of business.