Lisp Eval in C or C++

[Bob Pendleton]

In article <4434 at skye.ed.ac.uk>, richard at aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) writes:
> In article <11809 at dog.ee.lbl.gov> torek at elf.ee.lbl.gov (Chris Torek) writes:
> >If you want Lisp semantics, you might as well use Lisp syntax
> 
> I agree.  There seems to be a rush to convert Lisp systems to C (or
> C++) just at the time when the standard complaints about the size and
> speed of Lisp implementations are becoming irrelevant.  Memory really
> *is* cheap - I just bought 16Mb for my home machine for less than 600
> pounds - and processor speeds are increasing so that if you need to
> double your speed the easiest thing to do is wait a year rather than
> rewrite in C.  Add to this the advantages of built-in garbage
> collection and extension language, and Lisp becomes the obvious
> choice.

You are, of course, correct. But.

In a commercial environment your sales will be higher if you run on
the computer the cutomer already owns. Cutting your memory usage in
half can more than double your sales. And you won't sell anything
today if you need next years processor to make it run acceptably fast.

The origninal poster said "large." The company I work for sells a
"large" LISP application. Even compiled it can bog down a 128 meg
R3000. Not mention that having the application "go to lunch" for 5
minutes at random times while it is garbage collecting is a serious
user interface problem. Customers Will Not Accept It.

So... as much as I like LISP I don't think it is a good language for
writing commercial applications.

-- 
              Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself.
   bpendlet at dsd.es.com or decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet

                         Tools, not rules.