GLISP is a high-level language that is compiled into LISP. It provides a versatile abstract-data-type facility with hierarchical inheritance of properties and object-centered programming. GLISP programs are shorter and more readable than equivalent LISP programs. The object code produced by GLISP is optimized, making it about as efficient as handwritten LISP. An integrated programming environment is provided, including automatic incremental compilation, interpretive programming features, and an intelligent display-based inspector/editor for data and data-type descriptions. GLISP code is relatively portable; the compiler and the data inspector are implemented for most, major dialects of LISP and are available free or at nominal cost. GLISP (Novak 1982, 1983A, 198313) is a high-level language, based on LISP and including LISP as a sublanguage, that is compiled into LISP (which can be further compiled to machine language by the LISP compiler). The GLISP system runs within an existing LISP system and provides an integrated programming environment that includes automatic incremental compilation of GLISP programs, interactive execution and debugging, and display-based editing and inspection of data. Use of GLISP makes writing, debugging, and modifying programs significantly easier; at the same time, the code produced by the compiler is optimized so that its execution. efficiency is comparable to that of handwritten LISP. This article describes features or GLISP and illustrates them with examples. most or the syntax of GLISP is similar to LISP syntax or PASCAL syntax, so explicit treatment of GLISP syntax will be brief. GLISP programs are compiled relative to a knowledge base or object descriptions, a form of abstract data types (Liskov et al. 1977; Wulf, London, and Shaw 1976). A primary goal of the use of abstract data types in GLISP is to make programming easier. The implernentations of objects are described in a single place; the compiler uses the object descriptions to convert GLISP code written in terms or user objects into efficient LISP code written in terms of the implementations of the objects in LISP. This allows the implementations of objects to be changed without changing the code; it also allows the same code to be effective for objects that are implemented in different ways and thereby allows the accumulation of programming knowledge in the form of generic programs. Figure I illustrates the combination of information from these three sources; the recursive use of abstract data types and generic programs in the compilation process provides multiplicative power for describing programs. GLISP contains ordinary LISP as a sublanguage; LISP code can be mixed with GLISP code, so that no capabilities of the underlying LISP system are lost. GLISP provides PASCAL-like reference to substructures and properties, infix arithmetic expressions, and PASCAL-like control statements. Object-centered programming is built in; optimized compilation allows object-centered programs to run efficiently. GLISP is easily extensible for new object representations. Operator overloading for user-defined objects occurs automatically when arithmetic operators are defined as message selectors for those objects. The compiler can compile optimized code for access to objects represented in user-specified representation languages. GLISP has also been extended as a hardware description language for describing VLSI designs.

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The AI Magazine, Vol. 4, 3 (1983), pp. 37--47.

@article{novak:aimag83, title={GLISP: A Lisp-based Programming System with Data Abstraction}, author={Gordon S. Novak Jr.}, volume={4}, journal={The AI Magazine}, number={3}, month={Fall}, pages={37--47}, url="http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ai-lab?novak:aimag83", year={1983} }