Re: [Gcl-devel] Re: sequences / in-lining

[Paul F. Dietz]

Camm Maguire wrote:

> Just my thoughts, Feeback most welcome.

subtypep doesn't appear to be particularly slow, as judged by
the speed of the random subtypep tester (it appears to be
faster than sbcl, actually).  Incidently, that tester has just
found a bug, which I turned into a test case in subtypep-cons.lsp
(see test subtypep.cons.40).  This bug appeared four times
when calling (cl-test::test-types 1000000 5).

I like compiles to be fast -- I often recompile when developing
in lisp -- and gcl has always had slow compiles relative
to the other free lisps, and even more so relative to the commercial
lisps.  Compiler speed is one of the better reasons for going
with commercial lisps, IMO.  If you think gcl is better focused
at a different market niche (optimized delivery of speed-critical
applications, like ACL2) rather than development then I will understand.
In this case, portability and standards compliance becomes even
more important, since applications may be developed elsewhere
and delivered with gcl.

You're right on the money with the speed issues of lisp's
built-ins.  It should be  to get good speed with
a 'natural' lisp programming style.

        Paul