Functional - announcement: Qi 9.0 now available

Author

announcement: Qi 9.0 now available

Mark Tarver

2007-08-18, 7:07 pm

This was announced last month on Qilang as a prerelease.

Qi 9.0 is now available from www.lambdassociates.org.

>From the download file whatsnew.htm.

Turbo Mode Introduced
____________________

As a result of the Harrop wars ;) on comp.lang.lisp regarding the
speed of Lisp, Qi 9.0 includes the turbo-E technology that was tested
on the News Groups; see

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/co...74a066aaf865278

http://www.lambdassociates.org/studies/study10.htm

turbo-E was short for turbo-experimental. turbo-E produces very
efficient code.

In turbo mode, Qi 9.0 will produce code equivalent to the most
carefully hand-optimised Lisp list handling code. It will factorise
overlapping patterns to avoid repeating tests. Note the grouping
similar patterns together in your code will optimise the efficiency
gains from turbo-E.

turbo-E is disabled by default. To enable it, type (turbo +).

The object code from turbo-E is very difficult to read which is why it
is an option in this release. Those who want the comfort of being able
to read their Lisp source may prefer not to use it.

Mark

Slobodan Blazeski

2007-08-18, 7:07 pm

Congratulation for your release Mark. One friendly remark, if you
insisit on keeping data from people who download Qi please add some
login page in your Questionnaire page for people who already
downloaded previous releases of Qi to avoid filling the same things
again and again. You don't have to many fields but it's annoying in
it's present form and I wonder where you gonna get answers like:
Name: Donald
Email: Donald@duck.com
Organisation: Disneyland
Research Interests: sleeping at work

thanks

Slobodan
P.S
Actually getting those kind of logins might be a sign that Qi is
becoming popular.

On Aug 18, 5:22 pm, Mark Tarver <dr.mtar...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> This was announced last month on Qilang as a prerelease.
>
> Qi 9.0 is now available fromwww.lambdassociates.org.
>
>
> Turbo Mode Introduced
> ____________________
>
> As a result of the Harrop wars ;) on comp.lang.lisp regarding the
> speed of Lisp,

Lispers gained some benefits from our resident spammer action. Good
god.

> Qi 9.0 includes the turbo-E technology that was tested
> on the News Groups; see
>
> http://groups.google.co.uk/group/co...m/thread/ab0...
>
> http://www.lambdassociates.org/studies/study10.htm
>
> turbo-E was short for turbo-experimental. turbo-E produces very
> efficient code.
>
> In turbo mode, Qi 9.0 will produce code equivalent to the most
> carefully hand-optimised Lisp list handling code. It will factorise
> overlapping patterns to avoid repeating tests. Note the grouping
> similar patterns together in your code will optimise the efficiency
> gains from turbo-E.
>
> turbo-E is disabled by default. To enable it, type (turbo +).
>
> The object code from turbo-E is very difficult to read which is why it
> is an option in this release. Those who want the comfort of being able
> to read their Lisp source may prefer not to use it.
>
> Mark

Mark Tarver

2007-08-18, 7:07 pm

On 18 Aug, 19:01, Slobodan Blazeski <slobodan.blaze...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Congratulation for your release Mark. One friendly remark, if you
> insisit on keeping data from people who download Qi please add some
> login page in your Questionnaire page for people who already
> downloaded previous releases of Qi to avoid filling the same things
> again and again. You don't have to many fields but it's annoying in
> it's present form and I wonder where you gonna get answers like:
> Name: Donald
> Email: Don...@duck.com
> Organisation: Disneyland
> Research Interests: sleeping at work
>
> thanks
>
> Slobodan
> P.S
> Actually getting those kind of logins might be a sign that Qi is
> becoming popular.
>
> On Aug 18, 5:22 pm, Mark Tarver <dr.mtar...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Lispers gained some benefits from our resident spammer action. Good
> god.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> - Show quoted text -

Actually filling in the form is *not* compulsory - its purely to get a
picture of users and to give them a chance to comment.

Mark

Matthias Buelow

2007-08-18, 7:07 pm

Mark Tarver wrote:

> turbo-E was short for turbo-experimental. turbo-E produces very
> efficient code.

I'd be a bit careful with using the word "turbo" in combination with
programming languages... although in some experimental, academic
software it probably doesn't matter. (Borland might have some issues
with it otherwise.)

Markus

2007-08-19, 4:27 am

Mark Tarver wrote:

> This was announced last month on Qilang as a prerelease.
>
> Qi 9.0 is now available from www.lambdassociates.org.
>
>
> Turbo Mode Introduced
> ____________________
>
> As a result of the Harrop wars ;) on comp.lang.lisp regarding the

Mark. I like your attitude :-).

Regards -- Markus

Mark Tarver

2007-08-19, 4:27 am

On 18 Aug, 21:48, Matthias Buelow <m...@incubus.de> wrote:
> Mark Tarver wrote:
>
> I'd be a bit careful with using the word "turbo" in combination with
> programming languages... although in some experimental, academic
> software it probably doesn't matter. (Borland might have some issues
> with it otherwise.)

I think 'turbo' derived originally from racing cars - see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbocharger. I don't think that
Borland can rightfully appropriate the word. I agree that
'turbo-Pascal' is very much theirs though. I think anybody who
invented
a 'turbo-Lisp' would be entitled to their title, provided of course,
that it really did run quickly!

Mark

Daniel Barlow

2007-08-19, 8:04 am

Mark Tarver wrote:
> I think anybody who
> invented
> a 'turbo-Lisp' would be entitled to their title, provided of course,
> that it really did run quickly!

.... after a perceptible startup delay, and accompanied by a high-pitched
whine ;-)

-dan

John Stoneham

2007-08-19, 8:04 am

On Aug 18, 10:36 pm, Mark Tarver <dr.mtar...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> On 18 Aug, 21:48, Matthias Buelow <m...@incubus.de> wrote:
>
>
>
> I think 'turbo' derived originally from racing cars - seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbocharger. I don't think that
> Borland can rightfully appropriate the word. I agree that
> 'turbo-Pascal' is very much theirs though. I think anybody who
> invented
> a 'turbo-Lisp' would be entitled to their title, provided of course,
> that it really did run quickly!
>
> Mark

You mean like Microsoft acquired a trademark for the very common word
"Windows", or Apple acquired, gee I don't know, "Apple"? If you go to
http://www.borland.com/us/website/legal.html you will see that Borland
has trademarked the single name Turbo(TM) (not just "Turbo Pascal" or
"Turbo C", but plain "Turbo").

Of course, the defense in a trademark lawsuit is that there is no
confusion in the marketplace, i.e. that the market the new product is
addressing is sufficiently divergent from the market the owner of the
trademark is addressing that no one could possibly be

(for
example, "Shutters for Windows" in the home improvement market would
present no possibility of confusion with a product for a computer
platform).

Unfortunately, Borland's market is exactly the same market as Qi's.
You could try to point out that it's just the name of a feature, not
the name of the product itself, so there shouldn't be any confusion
Your Honor, I promise. I'm sure Borland (actually Codegear now) would
politely but emphatically disagree.

Let me know how that works out for you. :)

Emre Sevinc

2007-08-19, 8:04 am

On Aug 18, 8:58 pm, development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-
leypold.de (Markus E.L. 2) wrote:
> Mark Tarver wrote:
>
>
> Mark. I like your attitude :-).

Harrop Wars. And a new legend is born. We'll tell our grandchildren
about the battles that took place. We'll say "you kids nowadays don't
know anything about trolling or benchmarking or both... Those were the
days!" Then maybe some of us will rely on their qi powers to enhance
their weapons for a... more civilized age! ;-)

Mark Tarver

2007-08-19, 8:04 am

On 19 Aug, 13:05, John Stoneham <captnjamesk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 18, 10:36 pm, Mark Tarver <dr.mtar...@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> You mean like Microsoft acquired a trademark for the very common word
> "Windows", or Apple acquired, gee I don't know, "Apple"? If you go tohttp://www.borland.com/us/website/legal.htmlyou will see that Borland
> has trademarked the single name Turbo(TM) (not just "Turbo Pascal" or
> "Turbo C", but plain "Turbo").
>
> Of course, the defense in a trademark lawsuit is that there is no
> confusion in the marketplace, i.e. that the market the new product is
> addressing is sufficiently divergent from the market the owner of the
> trademark is addressing that no one could possibly be

(for
> example, "Shutters for Windows" in the home improvement market would
> present no possibility of confusion with a product for a computer
> platform).
>
> Unfortunately, Borland's market is exactly the same market as Qi's.
> You could try to point out that it's just the name of a feature, not
> the name of the product itself, so there shouldn't be any confusion
> Your Honor, I promise. I'm sure Borland (actually Codegear now) would
> politely but emphatically disagree.
>
> Let me know how that works out for you. :)- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

To paraphrase a well-known cartoon character - Borland can eat my
shorts. I don't accept that any company has the right to trademark a
term that existed years before their product ever saw light. I see
that they even try to appropriate the word 'silk' as their own despite
the fact that the Silk Route existed at the time of Marco Polo. Total
BS.

Mark

Philippa Cowderoy

2007-08-19, 7:09 pm

On Sun, 19 Aug 2007, Mark Tarver wrote:

> To paraphrase a well-known cartoon character - Borland can eat my
> shorts. I don't accept that any company has the right to trademark a
> term that existed years before their product ever saw light. I see
> that they even try to appropriate the word 'silk' as their own despite
> the fact that the Silk Route existed at the time of Marco Polo. Total
> BS.
>

I'm betting they didn't trademark silk in the context of fabrics or
anything likely to be made from fabric! And whether you accept their right
ultimately isn't the issue - it's whether the courts do.

--
flippa@flippac.org

Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire. Most
of the time you just get burnt worse though.

George Neuner

2007-08-20, 4:25 am

On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:33:20 -0000, Mark Tarver
<dr.mtarver@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:

>On 19 Aug, 14:31, Philippa Cowderoy <fli...@flippac.org> wrote:
>
>Actually as I said - I don't give a stuff for them and I'm not
>remotely impressed by their claim or the courts. That for me is the
>issue.
>

I'm not a lawyer but I don't think there would be any issue with a
language _feature_ going by the name "Turbo". What I would be careful
of is naming the language itself or any development tool connected
with it - something like "Turbo Qi" is bound to provoke a response
from Borland.

And by the way, regardless of what you may think, trademark
infringement is serious business. Trademarks have to be used and
defended or they revert to public domain. Borland is actively using
the "Turbo" mark and they will be keen to defend it.

Given that Qi is targeting similar[*] markets as Borland's own
products, probability is 99.44% you would lose. It helps a lot that
you're not selling Qi - the court is unlikely to award much (or
anything) in monetary damages - but you have to stop using "Turbo" in
connection with your product and likely have to pay the court fees (in
addition to your own legal bills).

[*] the court won't appreciate any distinctions you may try to make
between Qi and Delphi et al and/or their respective programmers or
target applications. The court will hear that Qi is a "programming
language" and then you are dead.

George
--
for email reply remove "/" from address

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