Re: Differences between Elisp and Lisp

[Phillip Lord]

>>>>> "os" == Oliver Scholz <alkibiades@gmx.de> writes:

  os> Phillip Lord <p.lord@russet.org.uk> writes: [...]
  >> Optimisation might be an issue as well of course, but processors
  >> are fast these days! Its nice, but not essential.
  os> [...]

  os> I disagree strongly. Emacs/W3 for example is sloooow, even on my
  os> 1,5 GHtz machine.


Indeed. 

I am not arguing that optimisation is a bad thing. I was just
suggesting that there are other concerns, which might be more
pressing. 

  os> BTW, I always wondered whether Elisp is partly to blame for the
  os> fact that the myth of Lisp being a “slow interpreted language”
  os> continues to live. Most of my friends which are interested into
  os> computers have never heard about CL (until I told them, that
  os> is), but they have heard that Emacs is partly written in Lisp.

It's possible, although the idea that lisp is slow predates emacs lisp
by a reasonable time. It would certainly be interesting to see how
much faster emacs would be if it were based on one of the common lisp
machines. 

Cheers

Phil