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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Comparison: Beta - Lisp
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Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 15:55:38 GMT
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In article <MAFM.94Sep16133030@wambenger.cs.uwa.edu.au> mafm@cs.uwa.edu.au (Matthew McDonald) writes:
>
>	I know this is about beta rather than lisp, but what Jacob is
>saying about beta sounds a lot like what many people have been saying
>about lisp.

Many people?  Like who, for instance?

I hope we don't add a misleading "Lisp advocate" stereotype
to the already misleading "Lisp" stereotype.

>Which is a pity, because competive compilers for sane languages like
>beta and lisp are obviously feasible. Paul Wilson was proposing a
>compiler for scheme+objects that would compete with C, CMU CL was
>great (although it now seems to be largely unsupported) and the ETH
>Oberon compilers are also wonderful (although the systems they're in
>don't co-operate with the rest of the universe.)

So you're actually on the same side as the Lisp advocates (modulo
your misleading characterization of them).

>At least Jacob's actually working on improving the beta
>implementation. 

That's a rather unfair complaint.  I have to work, and I'm
not employed these days to improve Lisp implementation.  A
number of other Lisp "advocates" are in a similar position.

>As far as I can tell, the usual lisp advocate response
>to performance complaints is to either:
>	(a) deny there's a problem,

Who has done that?  There are a number of obvious problems, in
addition to any non-obvious ones.  For instance, Lucid CL is too
large for me to use it for my work if I try to run it on the machine
on my desk.

>	(b) say one day there won't be a problem, or

Who says that?  Since no one knows what will happen in the
future, how can anyone say there won't be a problem one day?

>	(c) suggest you write code that looks like FORTRAN and
>        manually weigh expression trees and other insanity.

Who said anything about writing code that looks like FORTRAN?

The only thing close to that I can recall was in the "data bloat"
thread where it was pointed out that you could pack data by using
parallel arrays (rather than structs) as in FORTRAN.  The code
still wouldn't have to look like FORTRAN.  Nor does declaration-
filled Common Lisp look like FORTRAN.

(I have seen Lisp code that looked like FORTRAN, BTW.  Imagine
lots of PROGs and GOs.  But not for many years.)

-- jeff
