Allegro Common Lisp is a

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

with an

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, an ...

(IDE), developed by Franz Inc. It is a

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

of the language

Lisp Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation. Originally specified in the late 1950s, ...

, a

commercial software Commercial software, or, seldom, payware, is a computer software that is produced for sale or that serves commercial purposes. Commercial software can be proprietary software or free and open-source software. Background and challenge While ...

implementation of the language

Common Lisp Common Lisp (CL) is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard document ''ANSI INCITS 226-1994 (S2018)'' (formerly ''X3.226-1994 (R1999)''). The Common Lisp HyperSpec, a hyperli ...

. Allegro CL provides the full

American National Standards Institute The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organiz ...

(ANSI) Common Lisp standard with many extensions, including threads, CLOS streams, CLOS MOP, Unicode, SSL streams, implementations of various Internet protocols, OpenGL interface. The first version of Allegro Common Lisp was finished at the end of 1986, originally called ''Extended Common Lisp''. Allegro CL is available for many

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s including

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

(32/64-bit), and many

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

and

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in a maximum of 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform la ...

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing units (CPU) and arithmetic logic units (ALU) are those that are based on processor registers, a ...

, including

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

(Intel, 32/64-bit),

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

(32/64-bit),

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...

(32-bit), Solaris (x64, SPARC; 32/64-bit), UNICOS, and UTS.

Internationalization and localization In computing, internationalization and localization (American English, American) or internationalisation and localisation (British English, British), often abbreviated i18n and l10n respectively, are means of adapting to different languages, regi ...

support is based on

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

. It supports various external text encodings and provides string and character types based on

Universal Coded Character Set The Universal Coded Character Set (UCS, Unicode) is a standard set of character (computing), characters defined by the international standard International Organization for Standardization, ISO/International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC ...

2 (UCS-2). Allegro CL can be used with and without its

(IDE), which is available for Windows, Linux, and on macOS in version 8.2. The IDE (written in Allegro CL) includes development tools including an editor and an interface designer. Allegro CL can be used to deliver applications. Allegro CL is available as

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

, a Free Express Edition (with some limits like a constrained heap space) for non-commercial use. Customers can get access to much of the source code of Allegro CL. Allegro CL includes an implementation of

Prolog Prolog is a logic programming language that has its origins in artificial intelligence, automated theorem proving, and computational linguistics. Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic. Unlike many other programming language ...

and an object caching database called AllegroCache. The most recent release, Allegro CL 10.1, supports Symmetric Multiprocessing. Allegro CL has been used to implement various applications: * Naughty Dog used it for the development of various video games, implementing the development environments for Game Oriented Object Lisp and Game Oriented Assembly Lisp * Allegro CL has been used to implement scheduling systems for various telescopes including the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

and the Spitzer Space Telescope

Reception

Rating it 5 mice out of 5, '' MacUser'' in November 1988 said that Allegro Common Lisp 1.2.1 for Macintosh "is one of the most exciting programming environments on a personal computer", praising its

Emacs Emacs (), originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor Macros"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, s ...

like editor. While wishing for an

interface builder Interface Builder is a software development application for Apple's macOS operating system. It is part of Xcode (formerly Project Builder), the Apple Developer developer's toolset. Interface Builder allows Cocoa and Carbon developers to crea ...

and introductory documentation, the magazine said that "On a Macintosh II with more than 2.5 megabytes of memory, this is a development system that rivals dedicated machines at a fraction of the cost".

References

External links

* {{Widget toolkits Common Lisp implementations Common Lisp (programming language) software Functional languages Object-oriented programming languages

Reception

See also

References

External links