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From: richard@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Lisp Eval in C or C++
Message-ID: <4434@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Apr 91 12:29:29 GMT
References: <1991Apr4.182329.5513@searchtech.com> <11809@dog.ee.lbl.gov>
Reply-To: richard@aiai.UUCP (Richard Tobin)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 27

In article <11809@dog.ee.lbl.gov> torek@elf.ee.lbl.gov (Chris Torek) writes:
>>We are involved in redoing a large expert system in C++.  It was
>>originally written in Lisp. ... Has anyone out there ever implemented
>>eval in C or C++?

>What this all boils down to is:

>	We have a program in Lisp.  We want to reimplement it in
>	C++ syntax with Lisp semantics.

>If you want Lisp semantics, you might as well use Lisp syntax

I agree.  There seems to be a rush to convert Lisp systems to C (or
C++) just at the time when the standard complaints about the size and
speed of Lisp implementations are becoming irrelevant.  Memory really
*is* cheap - I just bought 16Mb for my home machine for less than 600
pounds - and processor speeds are increasing so that if you need to
double your speed the easiest thing to do is wait a year rather than
rewrite in C.  Add to this the advantages of built-in garbage
collection and extension language, and Lisp becomes the obvious
choice.

-- Richard
-- 
Richard Tobin,                       JANET: R.Tobin@uk.ac.ed             
AI Applications Institute,           ARPA:  R.Tobin%uk.ac.ed@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Edinburgh University.                UUCP:  ...!ukc!ed.ac.uk!R.Tobin