SourceForge.net CVS Repository - [lsharp] View of /HISTORY

Version 1.3 5 August 2006

Some features now require CLR 2
Added (spawn expression) to allow experimental multi threaded evaluation.
Added (handle-event target eventName handler) to allow .NET event handlers to be written in LSharp (and thus allow Windows Forms apps to be written in LSharp!).
Added defevent
Added symbol-name
Added gensym
Added member
Inspector shows non public fields
Bug fix - load fails when last line in file is a comment
The Console Main is no longer marked [STAThread]. This allows Windows Forms apps to be developed, run on a secondary thread using (spawn ‘(run application f)) and be dynamically and incremntally refined using the toploop on the first thread.
Cons now implements ICollection
Bug Fix - constructors can now pass null as an argument
&optional and &key parameters
Bug fix - map on empty list
Added Web Application development features and examples
Fixed bug in when return value
Fixed append bug

What is LSharp? Rob Blackwell, LSharp .NET project developer** explains,

L Sharp .NET is a powerful Lisp-like scripting language for .NET. It uses a Lisp dialect similar to Arc but tightly integrates with the .NET Framework which provides a rich set of libraries.

L Sharp is free software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. You can download the latest release from Sourceforge. You may also want to read Rob Blackwell’s Web Log.

Can’t wait to play with the latest updates, and most definitely am looking forward to the next official release.

Thanks Rob!
–

** As per the notes on the Introduction page of the language tutorial,

L Sharp has been developed as part of a Research and Development initiative at Active Web Solutions. I’d like to thank the board of AWS for their generous support.

You just *HAVE* to appreciate companies like Active Web Solutions who have gone the extra mile to encourage experimentation with new and exciting ways to bring together the power of the Lisp language (and dialects there of) with the main stream business development platforms such as .NET. With the broad array of tools, test suites, and reference platforms available that are completely open source (Mono, Rotor, Portable.NET), coupled with the meticulous details of the CLI and C# standardized specifications, it certainly provides incentive for projects like this to be developed, as from a cost, time-to-market, and the potential projects such as this offer to developer productivity (and therefore a solid business justification for funding their development), the difference is plain and simple,

With the above tools, test suites, and reference platforms made available by Microsoft, Novell, GNU, and a *VAST* array of active and important third-party tool/test-suite vendor community, as well as an ever growing population of open source projects such as IronPython, Boo, Ruby.NET***, and LOTS, LOTS, MORE (of course, LSharp qualifies quite nicely as well), the risk-to-return ratio is significantly low, and growing lower every day.

This is the kind of thing that both fuels and encourages innovation. Of course, innovation fuels progress, progress fuels technological advancement (though these two could be considered as much the same thing), and technological advancement is the key to breaking down the current technological barriers that exist between us, and the next generation of technologies, whatever those might be.

Does anybody else see the pattern here?

I hope so, cuz’ its an important pattern to understand.

To everyone involved with all of the above: Thank you!
—

*** Which implements the BigInteger library from the IronPython project, and from what I understand is at least partially funded by Microsoft — See the Acknowledgements section at the bottom of this same linked page from above for more info.

PLEASE NOTE: From this same page, it seems the Gardens Point Ruby.NET project is actively seeking testers and/or developers who have interest in making this project the best it can be. If this interests you, please provide your name, email address, and location you most often find yourself on this planet to the folks at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.