Lisp, the machine language. Was Re: Hallelujah!

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Sun Apr 4 18:08:43 1999

>>my money, it is an assembly language for an abstract computer. Sure, it
>
> I've seen some people on this list refer to certain computers as 'LISP
> machines'. What is the meaning of that? Is that like UNIX is a 'C
> machine'?

No, more like the PDP-11 is a C machine. Since C is essentially a portable
PDP-11 assembler. C is best-suited for (although it technically doesn't
require) byte-addressable flat address space machines. However, this has led
people to write terabytes of non-portable code under the assumption that "all
the world's a VAX".

LISP machines are designed for efficient implementation of LISP, and aren't
very good at anything else, such as running C code.

Unfortunately for their fans, because LISP never developed much mainstream
acceptance, LISP processor development always lagged behind the development
of conventional processors. By the time each generation of LISP processor
actually shipped, the latest conventional processors were almost as good
at running LISP code and better at running non-LISP code.

Similar to how very few of the RISC processors have ever managed to beat the
performance of the best contemporary x86 processors, despite the much-
ballyhooed theoretical advantages of RISC architecture. The reality is that
Intel has more money to spend on processor development than anyone else, so
everyone else is hard-pressed to keep up.
Received on Sun Apr 04 1999 - 18:08:43 BST