I just created an open-source project called Skate. Skate is a project to build a free, portable, open-source development environment based on the concepts pioneered by Apple's SK8 (in a fashion similar to the way that Squeak is based on the concepts of Smalltalk-80).
Overnight (pretty much literally), Skate has attracted a few dozen volunteers, and we are discussing some decisions about how to proceed. One of the decisions concerns which Lisp to use in the implementation. The top contenders are SBCL and CMUCL, but there are issues with each that need to be resolved. I thought I would raise the issues with the SBCL and CMUCL development communities and seek sage counsel. The flies in the ointment are requirements for application delivery on the Win32 platform, and support for Unicode. After talking with Carl Shapiro, it appears that development on Win32 is doable in CMUCL, and delivery is realistically foreseeable. As far as I know, though, Unicode support is not on the horizon. On the other hand, SBCL now has Unicode support more or less in place, but Win32 support is not on the immediate horizon (I sent mail to the implementor of the port, but haven't received a reply yet). As I say, a couple dozen people have volunteered for the project, and, if it would be helpful to the CMUCL or SBCL projects, we might prevail upon some of them to help with implementation of these missing features. Do you folks, the CMUCL and SBCL implementors, have any advice or information that you think might influence the decision that the Skate group makes about what Lisp to use for implementation? --me
