Corman Lisp 3.1 has been released!

[arbv]

@sharplispers/cormanlisp-maintainers @Luis-Cervantes @xach

As it was announced earlier, Corman Lisp 3.1 has been released!

The release can be found in the project's download section alongside the release notes.

Compared to the last release candidate it contains the following changes:

• important installer fixes and optimisations;
• documentation updates;
• new logo.

Happy New Year!

[phoe]

Is it possible to release the binaries in a .zip version without a MSI installer?

[arbv]

Shameless plug.

My personal notes about the release.

[arbv]

@phoe

Thank you for your interest in Corman Lisp!

The official releases are distributed as MSI installers. You can manually unpack the MSI without installing it.

Example:

msiexec /a CormanLisp-3.1.2.msi /qb TARGETDIR=full\path\to\directory

[arbv]

@phoe

As Corman Lisp includes some components which carry the different licensing terms, I believe it is better to distribute it in the form of an installer which shows a user all the necessary licensing terms during the installation process.

[phoe]

@arbv I have just tried running Corman Common Lisp under Wine in Linux, running the MSI installer using Wine's msiexec implementation, and the resulting executable seems to be a 16-bit one:

└─▪ file CormanLisp.exe
CormanLisp.exe: MS-DOS executable, MZ for MS-DOS

Is this intended?

[arbv]

@phoe

CormanLisp.exe is a 32-bit application.

Every Windows executable file contains 16-bit MS-DOS stub at the beginning which prints "This program can not be run in DOS mode." if one tries to run the executable from DOS.

The file utility reports incomplete information.

[ninejaguar]

Thank you all for your hard work! I'll be referring Windows users new to Common Lisp to this implementation to get started with.

[ninejaguar]

Is it possible to release the binaries in a .zip version without a MSI installer?

This would be a useful option in lowering the barrier to access this wonderful IDE/compiler. An earlier release came as a zip file which is how I first used Corman Common Lisp, so we know it is possible.

Unfortunately, running setup / installer executables are not always possible without Admin rights on many workplace PCs, restricting the spread of Common Lisp in many corporate environments. The msiexec command line utility to extract setup/installer contents is not always available without Admin rights as well. I've previously had to obtain and use the open-source/free Lessmsi utility via multiple steps in its place a couple of times. However, it's not easy explaining to others, also without Admin rights, all of the necessary steps for that and why they would need to.

Luckily, Clozure Common Lisp and Armed Bear Common Lisp do not require running setup / installer executables. However, it would be advantageous if Windows users (most corporate workstations are Windows-based) had access to the Corman Common Lisp's Windows-oriented IDE. Hopefully, lowering the barrier to access a good Windows IDE for Common Lisp will take precedence over concerns about reading licenses as part of an automated installation.

[arbv]

@phoe @ninejaguar, fair points. I have provided the ZIP archive as a fallback option.

[ninejaguar]

@phoe @ninejaguar, fair points. I have provided the ZIP archive as a fallback option.

Thank you!

[cameyo42]

Thanks for your hard work !!! Happy New Year

[luismbo]

Congrats to @arbv and the rest of the team. 🎉

[alandipert]

Thank you, I downloaded and installed on Windows 10 and have had fun playing around with it!

Update: I was able to make a standalone application with (save-application "life.exe" #'life-gui :static t)

~~I did run into a problem with SAVE-APPLICATION, but I'm not sure if it's broken or if I'm just doing it wrong.~~

1. Loaded life-gui.lisp example
2. (defun main () (threads:create-thread #'life-gui))
3. (save-application "life.exe" #'main)
4. When I execute life.exe in C:\Users\aland\Documents\Corman Lisp\life.exe this happens:

[arbv]

@alandipert

I am glad you have resolved the issue manually. It seems you have installed Corman Lisp without adding it to Path (or used the ZIP archive instead of the installer).

In general, you want to use SAVE-APPLICATION with :static t most of the time. Otherwise, you need to distribute CormanLispServer.dll alongside your application.

[alandipert]

@arbv cool, makes sense, thank you. FWIW I did use the installer and didn't change any options.

[arbv]

@alandipert

I need to post some clarifications.

I have looked into the code. The applications which depend on the CormanLispServer.dll specifically look for the library in the same directory where they are located. It actually makes sense, as it helps to avoid possible conflicts when multiple CormanLispServer.dll versions are available in 'Path'.

[arbv]

I have updated the release to include the fixes for two small, yet annoying issues (#45, #48). These are small to make a new release but could annoy new users.

[arbv]

I have updated the release once again to include the fixes for Y-OR-N-P and YES-OR-NO-P (#48) because their wrong behaviour might be very annoying as well, especially for newbies trying to write an interactive program.

Hopefully, that's all for this round. The all subsequent fixes will go into the next maintenance release.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[nigel4520]

Great to have Corman Lisp running again! I was a paid up user in its early days and always appreciated its application creation feature and its IDE. I posted a topic in the Google Group asking about defstruct behavior.

All the best, I'm lovin' Corman Lisp.

Cheers Nigel

[ninejaguar]

Great to have Corman Lisp running again! I was a paid up user in its early days and always appreciated its application creation feature and its IDE. I posted a topic in the Google Group asking about defstruct behavior.

All the best, I'm lovin' Corman Lisp.

Cheers Nigel

It's great to hear from original Corman CL users!

If you've tested the issue against SBCL and have a successful (ANSI) SBCL example compared against an unsuccessful (non-ANSI) Corman CL example, and can provide a link to the pertinent CLHS section, please include all of that in a new Issue here in Github.

If you've tested the issue with GNU Common Lisp (GCL), I believe GCL has a CLtL1 version and an ANSI version. You may want to confirm which version of the binary you used to test the issue and also if you have the latest available GCL binary installed.

[Balooga]

FYI; I just put up a Corman Lisp FFI Howto for interfacing to the SDL library that I wrote back in December 2003. Not sure how out of date the material is now.

https://www.balooga.com/posts/corman-lisp-ffi/

[arbv]

@Balooga

FYI; I just put up a Corman Lisp FFI Howto for interfacing to the SDL library that I wrote back in December 2003. Not sure how out of date the material is now.

Thanks! I am not sure how much the interface of the SDL has changed (there is a newer version - SDL2), but at the first glance everything else is still valid.

[Balooga]

@arbv

I just made a note in that post that SDL 1.2.x is discussed, and not SDL 2.x

Thanks.