[cl-faq] draft answer for Q. Do I really have to learn emacs?

[josh giesbrecht]

Larry Clapp wrote:
>>Of course, there are many advantages to having and learning a more 
>>powerful IDE.  Even so, there are other options to an emacs-based IDE. 
>>Commercial Common Lisps such as Allegro CL and Lispworks come with their 
>>own fully-featured IDE
> 
> Not entirely true, I don't think.  Specifically, Allegro CL has an IDE
> for Windows, but not Unix.  (Though as of 12/19/2005, the IDE is in
> Beta for Linux (http://www.franz.com/products/allegrocl/ACL_8.0_beta.lhtml).)

Thanks for the correction.  I think ideally, that paragraph would 
contain a reference or link to a FAQ question on what commercial Lisp 
implementations are available, or some other resource with more detail. 
  I don't want this answer to be misleading, but any more detail there 
is probably overkill.

Here's a retry for that paragraph:

"Of course, there are many advantages to having and learning a more
powerful IDE.  Even so, there are other options to an emacs-based IDE.
There are commercial CL compiler / IDEs available, such as Lispworks and 
Allegro CL for Windows (the Linux ACL's IDE is in beta).  Both of these 
have downloadable trial versions.  There's also the Java-based 
Jabberwocky CL IDE which, while not being as stable or widely used, 
looks like a usable alternative."


> Allegro uses Emacs as its editor.

Doesn't Allegro have its own editor, but allows you to optionally choose 
to use emacs?

  - josh g.