Prototype Based Programming in Lisp?

[David McClain]

Thanks for all that great information! Actually, what I’m interested in doing is just delving into the world of prototype programming, hopefully while remaining in Lisp. I do have to use Javascript from time to time, as an extension language for tools that are related to astronomy and astrophotography (TheSkyX and PixInsight). But so far I have remained in Lisp when possible, having it just produce JS scripts that I send to the apps for execution, while the executive logic behind those scripts remains in Lisp.

I really don’t want to wallow too deeply in the pure ECMAScript / Javascript world itself. I noticed almost immediately the sheer lack of introspective features in the base languages. You have to know about an object before you can do anything. No browsers, no tree diagrams, etc. That seems very much like trying to run in a pool of molasses.

What I really want to do right now is develop a Lisp based prototype programming system for experimentation. I’m a long-time language and systems developer, and so that’s how I learn best - by diving in and doing the bottom up and developing the language and applications demonstrating its powers. 

The pointer to Sheeple looks interesting, but I see that it doesn’t run right now in Lispworks. Any ideas what the issues are with LW? I see a mention of a Sheeple-like persistent object store in the works. I already have a very elaborate, distributed OODBMS developed in Lisp, called Okeanos (Greek for “Ocean”). Maybe I can bend that to purpose?

I’ll go ahead and ASDF Sheeple and see where that leads. Maybe the LW port will be relatively trivial?

Cheers,

- DM