6 ms·

As I mentioned in another post, I'm aware of the qualities of SBCL. I know it is a much better VM. That's not what I am concerned about...what I like about Pyth

by AF 19y ago

As I mentioned in another post, I'm aware of the qualities of SBCL. I know it is a much better VM. That's not what I am concerned about...what I like about Python is its quantity and consistency of libraries and its overall consistency period. Common Lisp just doesn't have that, and SBCL isn't perfect - its full functionality doesn't work across all platforms. > That would be an incredibly bad idea. And I'm just wondering...even with SBCL, why would it be an 'incredibly bad idea' to undertake such a project to convert a Lisp dialect to Python?

jey 19y ago
> And I'm just wondering...even with SBCL, why would it be an 'incredibly bad idea' to undertake such a project to convert a Lisp dialect to Python? Well...what's the point of compiling Lisp into a language with a slower runtime? If you mean that you want it to compiel to something "pretty", well, the output of a compiler is generally not pretty. It's just meant to be used as opaque object code, not something for human consumption.
- AF 19y ago
  I thought I made it clear. The point of doing that is because you'd have simple access to Python's massive collection of quality libraries.
  - jey 19y ago
    Oh, ok.
pc 19y ago
"I know it is a much better VM." SBCL isn't a VM. It's a Lisp implementation with a compiler that generates native code. Admittedly, many dynamic languages folks seem to find this concept odd. The idea that {dynamic typing, garbage collection, your favourite feature from ruby/python/perl/php} requires a VM unfortunately seems strongly ingrained.
- deleted 19y ago
  [deleted]
  - pc 19y ago
    Well, if you really want to use Lisp code and Python libraries, and are prepared to write a compiler, why not do the translation in the reverse direction? Write a compiler from Python to Lisp, and bring Python libraries to Lisp. [edit: irrelevant stuff removed since parent was deleted]
    - AF 19y ago
      It is definitely something to consider, and while I don't think translating Python to Common Lisp would be all that difficult, I do think that getting the C libraries that Python wraps working with CL might be a significant effort. A lot of the good libraries like csv, re, etc, are implemented in C if I remember correctly.

by AF 19y ago

jey 19y ago

> And I'm just wondering...even with SBCL, why would it be an 'incredibly bad idea' to undertake such a project to convert a Lisp dialect to Python? Well...what's the point of compiling Lisp into a language with a slower runtime? If you mean that you want it to compiel to something "pretty", well, the output of a compiler is generally not pretty. It's just meant to be used as opaque object code, not something for human consumption.

AF 19y ago
I thought I made it clear. The point of doing that is because you'd have simple access to Python's massive collection of quality libraries.
- jey 19y ago
  Oh, ok.

pc 19y ago

"I know it is a much better VM." SBCL isn't a VM. It's a Lisp implementation with a compiler that generates native code. Admittedly, many dynamic languages folks seem to find this concept odd. The idea that {dynamic typing, garbage collection, your favourite feature from ruby/python/perl/php} requires a VM unfortunately seems strongly ingrained.

deleted 19y ago
[deleted]
- pc 19y ago
  Well, if you really want to use Lisp code and Python libraries, and are prepared to write a compiler, why not do the translation in the reverse direction? Write a compiler from Python to Lisp, and bring Python libraries to Lisp. [edit: irrelevant stuff removed since parent was deleted]
  - AF 19y ago
    It is definitely something to consider, and while I don't think translating Python to Common Lisp would be all that difficult, I do think that getting the C libraries that Python wraps working with CL might be a significant effort. A lot of the good libraries like csv, re, etc, are implemented in C if I remember correctly.