Development
As of January 2009, Qi has been updated several times since the first release (6.1) in April 2005, and the current release, Qi II 1.07, released in July, 2009, runs under both Windows and Linux on the CLISP, CMU Common Lisp, Allegro Common Lisp and Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL) platforms.
Qi II incorporates the following improvements over the original Qi, as follows:
- A complete reimplementation of Qi from the ground up.
- New license.
- Type secure lazy evaluation on demand.
- Improved programmable syntax.
- 4 speed compiler which utilises type information.
- Improved integration with Common Lisp.
- Runs under LispWorks.
- Common functions made polyadic.
- Improved connection to Prolog.
- Rule closures for embedding sequent reasoning into Qi functions.
- Improved handling on dependent types.
- A type secure class system in a library.
Before this, an earlier version, 9.0, incorporated an optional factoring code compiler (Turbo-E) for optimising pattern-matching. In a comparative shoot-out against several Lisp programs and OCaml, Qi 9.0 performed at the speed of the fastest and most heavily hand-optimised Lisp version. A release (Qi/Tk) incorporating a type secure version of Tcl/Tk embedded into Qi appeared in March 2009.
In January 2010, a successor version to Qi II was announced designed to implement many of the ideas in Tarver's lectures. The new version is designed to run under Common Lisp, Clojure and Python and is also targeted for the Dalvik Virtual Machine. Contributors include Dr Mark Tarver, Carl Shapiro of Google and Stefan Tampe.
Alternatively, the developers and proponents of the ideas set forth in Qi, have come up with a successor to Qi, dubbed Shen (programming language). Shen is a more compact language as compared to Qi, although it is mostly compatible with Qi. As such, further development on Qi may be stalled, with the result being more effort spent on Shen.
Read more about this topic: Qi (programming Language)
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