Programming Language History [was: F/OS & the blind]

[Bill McGonigle]

On Dec 8, 2005, at 10:14, Python (aka Lloyd) wrote:

> As a confirmed python nut, I could not resist tossing another URL onto
> the thread.
> http://norvig.com/python-lisp.html
> (Peter Norvig is Google's Director of Research)

I find this totally intriguing:

	"Basically, Python can be seen as a dialect of Lisp with
     "traditional" syntax (what Lisp people call "infix" or
     "m-lisp" syntax)."

If this is true (and we have no good reason to doubt Norvig) somebody 
should be able to compile a Python script to its equivalent Lisp code 
in an efficient manner.  Then we have this:

      "Comparing Lisp and Python and throwing out the top and
       bottom two, we find Python is 3 to 85 times slower than
       Lisp -- about the same as Perl, but much slower than
       Java or Lisp. Lisp is about twice as fast as Java."

So, Norvig is saying the Python interpreter is what is killing speed, 
and, using the above mentioned python2lisp code we should be able to 
run lisp-compiled Python scripts at constant time with compiled C++.

There must be a Lisp academic somewhere who would want to explore this. 
  If I'm to believe my Lisp programmer friends, parsing Python should be 
trivial to boring.

-Bill
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