Hi,
Does anyone have an opinion on the speed of a Java Virtual Machine
implemented on top of Lisp? I'm talking about a commercial version of
Lisp,
and optimized Lisp code that uses things like compilation and
declarations
where possible.
Jason Karney <·······@netgenics.com>
Jason Karney wrote in message <·················@netgenics.com>...
>Does anyone have an opinion on the speed of a Java Virtual Machine
>implemented on top of Lisp? I'm talking about a commercial version of
>Lisp,
>and optimized Lisp code that uses things like compilation and
>declarations
>where possible.
Well, the performance would largely be that of the LISP runtime. Creating a
compiling JVM in CL was the first thing I seriously considered doing with
Java when JDK 1.0 came out (and even proposed such a project to Digitool but
they weren't terribly interested).
I don't think performance per se is quite the issue (at the time two years
ago this approach would have outperformed the JDK but today would mostly
just keep pace with the current second generation JVM implementations - the
third generation JVMs coming out next year will very likely outperform a CL
implementations in most cases).
The reason a compiling JVM for CL would be interesting even today is the
ability to use CL as native code and as an extension to CL-HTTP. This would
make the benefits of Java accessible to the entire LISP community thus
enhancing the commercial opportunities for LISP developers and products. A
product like this has already been done for Smalltalk
<http://home.t-online.de/home/exept/>.
jim
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James P. White Netscape DevEdge Champion for IFC
Director of Technology Adventure Online Gaming http://www.gameworld.com
Developers of Gameworld -- Live Action Role-Playing and Strategic Games
···@aognet.net Pagesmiths' home is http://www.pagesmiths.com