About Clozure CL

Clozure CL is an open source Common Lisp implementation that runs on the following platforms:

• Mac OS X 10.4 and later (PowerPC and x86)
• Linux (PowerPC and x86)
• FreeBSD 6.x and later (x86)
• Solaris (x86)
• Microsoft Windows (x86)

Some distinguishing features of the implementation include:

• fast compilation speed
• native OS threads
• precise, generational, compacting garbage collector
• convenient foreign-function interface

Clozure CL used to be called OpenMCL. It is also sometimes called CCL. You will see the three names being used interchangeably.

Getting Clozure CL

The most recent released version of Clozure CL is version 1.3.

The preferred way to get Clozure CL is via Subversion. For example, to get Clozure CL 1.3 for Darwin/x86, you'd type (where the $ is the shell prompt):

$ svn co http://svn.clozure.com/publicsvn/openmcl/release/1.3/darwinx86/ccl

You can get versions for other platforms by changing the darwinx86 to one of linuxx86, freebsdx86, solarisx86, windows, darwinppc, or linuxppc.

Please see ​Obtaining, Installing, and Running Clozure CL for details on completing the installation.

If you don't have Subversion installed, you can download an earlier version from the table below. All these archives are available via anonymous ftp at ​ftp://ftp.clozure.com/pub/release/1.2/.

	x86-32	x86-64	PowerPC
Darwin	svn only	​1.2 (​dmg)	​1.2 (​dmg)
FreeBSD	svn only	​1.2
Linux	svn only	​1.2	​1.2
Solaris	svn only	svn only
Windows	svn only	svn only

After installing CCL, read about getting updates and bug fixes.

Documentation

The Clozure CL manual is available on the web at ​http://ccl.clozure.com/ccl-documentation.html or ​http://ccl.clozure.com/manual/. As of Clozure CL 1.2, the DocBook sources for the manual are included with the distribution.

We have started to collect a list of FrequentlyAskedQuestions.

Support

Mailing Lists

There are two CCL-related mailing lists hosted at clozure.com. Click on a list's link to subscribe or to view archived messages.

• ​openmcl-devel@clozure.com is for general and technical discussion of Clozure CL.
• ​openmcl-announce@clozure.com is a low-volume list for release announcements.

IRC

Everyone interested in Clozure CL is welcome to participate in #ccl on irc.freenode.net. The ​channel logs are available. We also keep ​logs for #lisp and ​logs for #scheme.

Paid Support

​Clozure Associates provides commercial support and consulting services for Clozure CL as well as other Common Lisp implementations. These services can range from helping you debug your software to adding extensions to CCL, to providing several full time Lisp programmers to help you build your application. Please contact us at business@… for more information.

Starting Points

CCL Basics

• Getting Around in CCL - quick tips for working with CCL's toplevel.
• Installing SLIME -- Install SLIME and configure it for use with CCL.
• CCL Hints -- Tips and Tricks from Clozure CL Experts (and wanna-be's).
• The Inspector -- How to use CCL's Inspector.
• Building Large Projects -- How to construct software consisting of multiple Lisp source files.
• Tracking CCL changes -- How to keep up with the latest changes.
• Tracking the development version -- There are reasons why it's often called the "bleeding edge".
• Windows Notes -- some notes on installing and running Clozure CL on Windows

Contributing to CCL

• Committing your own changes into SVN -- Let us know if you want write access to the SVN repository.

In-Depth CCL

• Clozure CL FFI -- Working with external libraries
• Cocoa Bridge -- Create Rich User Interfaces with the Cocoa Bridge
• Easy GUI -- Create slightly less Rich Interfaces with Easy GUI
• Apple's Currency Converter in Lisp -- Build Apple's Currency Converter tutorial example in Lisp
• Clozure CL Internals -- Learn the magic behind the scenes
• Declare Optimize -- What do optimization declarations do and how is this implemented
• Threads and Setf -- In what ways is assignment atomic?
• How Fast Are We compared to other Lisps?
• IDE Internals and architecture -- How the CCL IDE works
• Hemlock Command Implementor's Manual -- detailed documentation on CCL's editor
• IDE Doc Under Development -- future IDE manual sections, work in progress.
• Running CCL Under GDB
• Heap Utilization -- Find out what kinds of objects are filling up your memory
• Building the FFI translator - Build the "ffigen" interface translator from source.

Orient Yourself to Clozure CL Culture

• The History of CCL
• People in the CCL community
• CCL Projects -- Projects using CCL
• CCL Software -- Software successfully built using CCL
• ToDo -- Things that need to be done, should be done, someone's doing, or someone should be doing
• Successful Lisp Translations