An Outline of Arizona

Abstract
This paper outlines a system called Arizona, which is intended to be a portable, public-domain collection of tools supporting scientific computing, quantitative graphics, and data analysis, implemented in Common Lisp and CLOS (the Common Lisp Object System). Briefly, the design is motivated by our belief that an ideal system for scientific computing and data analysis should have: One language that can be used for both for line-by-line interaction or defining compiled procedures; Minimal overhead in adding new compiled procedures; A language that supports a wide variety of abstractions and the definition of new kinds of abstractions; Programming tools (editor, debugger, browsers, metering and monitoring tools); Automatic memory management (dynamic space allocation and garbage collection); Portability over many types of workstations and operating systems; A community of users and developers; Access to traditional Fortran scientific subroutine libraries or equivalents; A representation of scientific data directly in the data structures of the language; Comprehensive numerical, graphical, and statistical functionality; Device independent static output graphics; Window based interactive graphics; Support for efficient and concurrent access to large databases; and Documentation and tutorials, both paper and on-line.

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