What is the difference between a VLX file and a FAS file? Which one is better? Thanks
FAS files are simply compiled LSP source files. You would load them singly just as you would with LSP files. VLX files are more Application oriented; they can contain multiple source files, including LSP, FAS and even DCL files. When you load the single VLX, you load the whole shebang, which is nice for packaging. Matt
Different purposes, as Matt says. The VLX can can include multiple files. I've used them for simplicity, by compiling a number of small lsp files into one vlx, and autoloading it when any one of the lisp commands are used. Depending on hardware etc. there is a limit to how big you want this to be -- I don't include *every* lisp in one file as it would take forever to load. But I do group together lisps that have similar functions into one vlx. On our (very slow) computers, a vlx of 20 to 40 KB doesn't have a noticeable load time, and it might encompass 10 or 20 very small lisps. I still maintain the source code in separate lisp files. If one changes, I simply "rebuild" the application. The only advantage of this is fewer files to keep track of. Instead of multiple fas files, there's one vlx.
