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

[Python]

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 12:05 -0500, Bill McGonigle wrote:
> 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.

The fly in the ointment is that many important Python libraries are
written in C.  Those will not translate easily into Lisp.  Of course, if
Python becomes fast, then those libraries could be rewritten in Python
fairly quickly.

> 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 is a project (PyPy) to implement the Python interpreter in a
subset of Python.  Phillip Eby's take on the project is interesting - at
least to Python nuts.
http://dirtsimple.org/2005/10/children-of-lesser-python.html

-- 
Lloyd Kvam
Venix Corp