Subject: Re: The true faith From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:49:34 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3220084172749450@naggum.net> * Raffael Cavallaro | In a sense, the bias that performance is a secondary consideration | flows from a contempt for the brute force method, and a preference for | the algorithmically elegant solution. However, some interesting things | are really only doable because of what can only be described as raw | machine power. If one's more elegant language cannot keep up, then | it's elegance is of little use in this type of cutting edge project. While this is obviously true, the very existence and proliferation of exceedingly slow languages like Perl, Python, and Java, means that people are beginning to understand that performance does not matter for _every_ task and are more than willing to do the logic in a more convenient language. I think Common Lisp may have tried to compete on performance when it should have competed on convenience. On the other hand, I would so love to have all of Common Lisp available to me in a form that would compile to "C-compatible" code, that followed the calling conventions of more widely used languages upon request, so that Common Lisp could be used without having to let it be the master of the whole application. /// --