Re: [Gnu-arch-users] is there demand for itla?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Tom" == Tom Lord <address@hidden> writes:

    Tom> Not really.  There is a kind of lisp renaissance going on
    Tom> these days.

Seconded; it's remarkable how long it's been since I heard a complaint
that the Emacs implementation language is Lisp (and that was from
Francois Pinard, author of Pymacs).

    Tom> As a place to start, the factor that "it's a GNU standard" is
    Tom> as persuasive an argument as any.

Is it, in practice?  Rationale: I've never actually encountered it in
the wild (but then, I don't use GNOME).  In particular, librep (aka
Sawfish's implementation language) is one of the two Lisp-family
languages I use to write extensions.  The extension language I use
most after Emacs Lisp is Python (due to Mailman and roundup).

    Tom> It's sorely tempting to pick systas instead just because it
    Tom> has everything I know I need but, alas, it also isn't as
    Tom> widely deployed as Guile and is closer to an R4RS rather than
    Tom> R5RS Scheme.

To be honest, I've only experimented with Scheme.  But looking at the
different implementations it seemed to me that the big differences
have to do with library functions, and normal operating mode (compiled
programs, r-e-p loop, or extension language)---ie, Guile probably has
one of the problems for this that Emacs Lisp would: it brings unneeded
baggage with it (though much less of it than Emacs Lisp), and being
designed as an extension language, I wonder if it will be as nice as
something designed as an interactive shell.

    Tom> ITLA will port fairly easily across many implementations,
    Tom> present and future.

Then this is a strong argument for using an implementation you are
familiar with; your time is the primary resource here.



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