Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!netcom4!tmb
From: tmb@netcom4.netcom.com (Thomas Breuel)
Subject: Re: case for Lisp
In-Reply-To: pg@hershey.harvard.edu's message of 5 Feb 1995 14:23:32 GMT
Message-ID: <TMB.95Feb15065510@netcom4.netcom.com>
Sender: tmb@netcom4.netcom.com
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References: <3h2n14$164@necco.harvard.edu>
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 14:55:10 GMT
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In article <3h2n14$164@necco.harvard.edu> pg@hershey.harvard.edu (Paul Graham) writes:

   Let me also reply to some of the problems [with CL] Chris mentioned:

	   1.  Garbage collection. [...]

	   2.  Too Slow. [...]

In my experience, the majority of cycles on UNIX machines generally
goes into running code written in languages that are much less
efficient than CommonLisp and that use automatic memory management
(Perl, awk, etc.).  That has actually been true for many years.
Similar patterns probably exist on other OSes as well (CMS/REXX,
DOS-Windows/VisualBasic-WordBasic, etc.).

The market has been quite willing to buy slow, garbage collected
languages.  If CommonLisp doesn't succeed, this isn't the reason.

				Thomas.
				


