Re: A Dylan implemented on Common Lisp

[osiris@cs.utexas.edu (Rob Browning)]

In article <D584q4.2E8@cee.hw.ac.uk>, andrew@cee.hw.ac.uk (Andrew Dinn) wrote:

> If you add on top of this the overheads for CLOS (which is also not
> layered and hence made Common Lisp an even bigger ball of mud) then
> you can change thet 12 Mb to 20 Mb.

I don't know what system you're talking about, but MCL only takes up about
2-3 MB even with CLOS, an entire  optimizing *compiler*, and  all the
Macintosh interface glue.

> Remember C may be a bitch to program it can be made to run lean and
> fast on cheap hardware and most developers think the cost is just the
> salaries of a few good (cheap) C hackers i.e. it answers their
> priority numero uno and they cannot see the drawbacks. Common Lisp and
> CLOS may be better to program in, more elegant, safer, reusable
> etc. but it is never going to run lean and will only be fast on
> expensive hardware (don't quote me benchmarks for tak, think about
> cache/real memory residence and paging overheads) and will require use
> of either expensive or inexperienced programmers.

Programmer salaries are much more expensive than hardware.

An inexperienced Lisp programmer is generally more productive than
an inexperienced C programmer.

Maintenence of C programs is a killer.

--Rob.