Timing

If you are curious about the overall performance of your application, the time macro will provide some quick information:

(time (foo nil))  
  This will report the time and space used by foo, e.g.:

 USER(1): (time (list 1 2 3))
 ; cpu time (non-gc) 0 msec user, 0 msec system
 ; cpu time (gc)     0 msec user, 0 msec system
 ; cpu time (total)  0 msec user, 0 msec system
 ; real time  231 msec
 ; space allocation:
 ;  6 cons cells, 0 symbols, 0 other bytes, 0 static bytes
 (1 2 3)

Note that time is transparent, i.e., it returns whatever its argument would return, including multiple values, etc., so it is safe to intersperse it nearly anywhere.

Common Lisp has more facilities for rolling your own timers: see the generic Common Lisp documentation, or contact Kestrel Technologies.