Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!mike
From: mike@ists.yorku.ca (Mike Clarkson)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Portability problem with gnu-emacs
Summary: It's like Franz and MacLisp
Message-ID: <213@ists>
Date: 26 Sep 88 04:40:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: ists.213
References: <441@myab.se> <394@augean.OZ> <305@talos.UUCP> <1252@titan.SW.MCC.COM> <28474@think.UUCP>
Sender: news@ists
Lines: 37

In article <28474@think.UUCP>, rlk@think.com (Robert Krawitz) writes:
> In article <1252@titan.SW.MCC.COM>, janssen@titan (Bill Janssen) writes:
> ]In article <305@talos.UUCP>, kjones@talos (Kyle Jones) writes:
> ]>GNU Emacs Lisp is clearly less complex than full Common Lisp...
> ]"Clearly".  uh-huh.
> 
> The problem is that it's missing a fair number of useful features, and
> there are a few major problems mostly with the reader (lack of reader
> macros, only dynamic scoping, and case sEnSiTiViTy).  Other than that,
> it's quite powerful indeed, and it doesn't seem a lot "simpler"
> conceptually.

Emacs Lisp is very MacLisp'ish, as you would expect as RMS was one of the
original MacLispers.  It therefore shares a lot in common with Franz Lisp,
which was built to run a large MacLisp program (MACSYMA).  There is
a lot of similarities in design between Franz and Emacs Lisp, particularly
the C-code kernel, followed by load and dump.  However, Franz has
a real compiler, that even by today's standards is quite fast.

A great fantasy of mine has always been to merge Emacs into Franz.
This would give a much fuller and better performing lisp, that had a
real compiler.  It might also help keep some (PD) development going on 
Franz.  There are disadvantages to large monlithic images supporting
two different functions, but both Franz and Emacs have autoloading,
so the combined system need not be to big.  There would be great gains
in GC speed and speed of compiled code, not to mention things like
floating point numbers, and a foreign function interface.

Sigh... sometime when I have a spare year just for hacking...




Mike Clarkson					mike@ists.UUCP
Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science	mike@ists.yorku.ca
York University, North York, Ontario,		uunet!mnetor!yunexus!ists!mike
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