Re: ad-hoc vs. planned subsets.

[Jed Marti <marti@randgr>]

Reasons for CL subsets:
   Another reason for subsets is the efficiency issue. Many of our application
programs are incredibly slow, to the point where the programs are being
rewritten in other languages. We spent two frustrating man years
converting a large Interlisp program into C (still not complete), the sole
reason being speed. I cannot justify the view that once an application is 
developed it should be converted into a static procedural language for 
efficiency. It is too costly and fosters the conviction that it should have 
been written in that medium in the first place. 

   I believe that a CL subset designed for speed is one that best serves 
embedded applications:
  1) a fast subset has fewer function calls to a smaller "library"
  2) it has a better chance of being CONSless than a system with hidden
     mechanisms
  3) the human interface can be isolated and extracted when not needed

Jed Marti   MARTI@RAND-UNIX