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From: shebs@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley Shebs)
Newsgroups: net.ai,net.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Multi-language systems
Message-ID: <3249@utah-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Mar-85 23:10:49 EST
Article-I.D.: utah-cs.3249
Posted: Mon Mar 18 23:10:49 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Mar-85 06:16:57 EST
References: <242@bu-cs.UUCP> <316@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> <253@bu-cs.UUCP> <494@harvard.ARPA> <259@bu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: shebs@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley shebs)
Organization: Univ of Utah CS Dept
Lines: 26
Xref: watmath net.ai:2641 net.lang.lisp:403
Summary: 

In article <259@bu-cs.UUCP> hen@bu-cs.UUCP (Bill Henneman) writes:
>It's when you move across families where things break down, and
>especially where you try mixing an inherently interpreted language like
>LISP or SNOBOL with an inherently compiled one like FORTRAN that things
>get dangerous.

If a person as experienced as Bill Henneman can have this misconception,
then it must be distressingly prevalent!  There are NO languages that
are "inherently" interpreted or compiled.  The preponderance of Fortran
compilers and Lisp interpreters is more the result of historical
accident than of any deeper reason.  In fact, some elementary diddling
with denotational semantics shows that compilers and interpreters
always come in pairs - every compiler has an associated interpreter,
and vice versa.  For "normal" compilers, the interpreter is the bare
machine plus a runtime system.  For "normal" Lisp interpreters, the
"compiler" is the Lisp reader, which maps strings to s-expressions.
But these standards of normality are dictated by convention, rather
than by the actual definitions of the languages (thus we frequently
see Lisp compilers, and less frequently Fortran interpreters).

The *real* differences between Lisp and Fortran lie in two areas:
Lisp is primarily functional, while Fortran is imperative (no, neither
is perfect in its adherence to the paradigm!), and their primitive
datatypes are quite different.

							stan shebs