X-Git-Url: http://repo.macrolet.net/gitweb/?a=blobdiff_plain;ds=sidebyside;f=doc%2Fintro.sgml;h=cc11eb33ebcf7ffb168d0279a2b4e13886d471f6;hb=6e7ae26173b40d635b94e81bc73f5c06d550de32;hp=67d3d5467233c87026727ab5743b3460091ad6c2;hpb=f6a2be77637d025bfded9430f02863c28f74f77a;p=sbcl.git
diff --git a/doc/intro.sgml b/doc/intro.sgml
index 67d3d54..cc11eb3 100644
--- a/doc/intro.sgml
+++ b/doc/intro.sgml
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ specific to &SBCL;, not on behavior which is common to all
implementations of &ANSI; &CommonLisp;.
-Where To Go For More Information on &CommonLisp; in General
+Where To Go For More Information about &CommonLisp; in General
Regardless of your ability level, two very useful resources
for working with any implementation of
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ but need to learn about Lisp, three books stand out.
-Where To Go For More Information On &SBCL;
+Where To Go For More Information About &SBCL;
Before you read this user manual, you should probably read
two other things.
@@ -107,9 +107,9 @@ known bugs, known performance problems, and missing extensions are
likely to be fixed, tuned, or added.
&SBCL; is descended from &CMUCL;, which is itself descended from
-Spice Lisp. Early implementations for the Mach operating system on the
-IBM RT, back in the 1980s. Design decisions from that time are still
-reflected in the current implementation:
+Spice Lisp, including early implementations for the Mach operating
+system on the IBM RT, back in the 1980s. Design decisions from that
+time are still reflected in the current implementation:
The system expects to be loaded into a
fixed-at-compile-time location in virtual memory, and also expects
@@ -122,7 +122,8 @@ reflected in the current implementation:
A word is a 32-bit quantity. The system has been
ported to many processor architectures without altering this
basic principle. Some hacks allow the system to run on the Alpha
- chip (a 64-bit architecture) but the assumption that a word is
+ chip (a 64-bit architecture) but even there 32-bit words are
+ used. The assumption that a word is
32 bits wide is implicit in hundreds of places in the
system.
The system is implemented as a C program which is
@@ -150,7 +151,7 @@ special classes of forms, such as symbols which are
boundp>. More complicated forms are evaluated by calling
compile> and then calling funcall> on the
returned result.
-
+
The direct ancestor of &SBCL; is the X86 port of &CMUCL;. This
port was in some ways the most cobbled-together of all the &CMUCL;
@@ -160,8 +161,8 @@ debugging) do not work particularly well there. &SBCL; should be able
to improve in these areas (and has already improved in some other
areas), but it takes a while.
-The &SBCL; GC, like the GC on the X86 port of &CMUCL;, is
-conservative>. This means that it doesn't maintain a
+On the x86, &SBCL; like the X86 port of &CMUCL;, uses a
+conservative> GC. This means that it doesn't maintain a
strict separation between tagged and untagged data, instead treating
some untagged data (e.g. raw floating point numbers) as
possibly-tagged data and so not collecting any Lisp objects that they
@@ -182,7 +183,7 @@ running system with new versions. This quasi-build procedure can cause
various bizarre bootstrapping hangups, especially when a major change
is made to the system. It also makes the connection between the
current source code and the current executable more tenuous than in
-any other software system I'm aware of -- it's easy to accidentally
+other software systems -- it's easy to accidentally
build> a &CMUCL; system containing characteristics not
reflected in the current version of the source code.