Re: [spr4004] Open Common Lisp system from CMU

[jim@Franz.COM (Jim Veitch)]

Well, I have to agree with your overall philosophy: Lisp needs help.
I'm not sure that I fully agree, in that I think performance in CL,
(while still important) is not really where the problem is; the
problem is that noone can write tools in CL and deliver them as
50-100K executables (without eventually fixing this, I think a case
can be made that the dominant Lisp may be Scheme, not CL).  However,
that's not really relevant to this conversation.

As far as I am concerned, we are happy to acknowledge CMU contribution
if it ends up being significant.

I also understand from Rob you didn't intend to pick on us, so I'm
happy just to have Allegro specific references removed from
documentation.  Also, if you give us a chance to actually respond
before making net-wide postings, I'm happy for you to make direct
comparisons with Allegro.  E.g., maybe you don't realize we do native
floating point, it's just that you have to declare single-float or
double-float (float is a generic type in Allegro).  Or maybe the
problem is that Allegro requires too many declarations compared to
Python; in that case a response from us might be: "Yes, but not too
many more, and we think it's a problem too."  And if we don't respond,
then we get what comes, viz., a comparison from CMU's point of view.
But in no circumstances are we interested in getting into e-mail
battles over the net (which is why you haven't seen responses from us
before).

I personally think it's good for technical people here to be talking
with Rob and you guys; maybe it'll spark some nice ideas both of us
could use.  The best bet for e-mail conversation (that CMU initiates)
to proceed concerning a Python vs. Allegro comparison over some
feature is to send it to bugs@franz.com.  This way it gets put into
our hopper for replying (customer support) and we'll deal with it
promptly.  Phone calls are OK too; call Chris Richardson.

Jim.

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