🚀 go-pugleaf

>3. Neither 1 nor 2 is in any way an argument that compiled Lisp is
>always as fast as hand-coded assembler.  They're not even an argument
>that compiled Lisp is as fast as C.

That's my point though.  I'm convinced that a competant C or assembly
language programmer can code builtin functions that will be 
faster than if they were Lisp coded.

>4. Nonetheless, there are cases where Lisp is as fast, or faster 
>than, C.  There are also times when compiled code is faster than
>hand-coded assembler.  (Indeed, not all assembly code is designed
>for max speed; sometimes readability considerations intervene.)

Well, I've never seen it.  Whenever I C code stuff and interface it
to Lisp, it runs many times faster.  I've C coded 80% of my
Petri-net simulator and interaced it so it can be executed from
EuLisp and it's almost 8 times faster than the pure CMU common lisp
version (and it's not like I'm the worlds hottest C programmer).  Also
note that pure Eulisp is slower than CMU Common Lisp.

>
>HCL is a very fast (on sun3's) lisp and part of the reason is
>that much of it is written in assembly language.

>Is it faster than other Lisps?  How much faster?  Is it faster
>than C?

4 years ago HCL ran the Gabriel Benchmarks faster than KCL, AKCL,
and ALLEGRO on SUN3's.  It runs tak about as fast as C, but he cheated
on that one.  It was designed to run the Gabriel Benchmarks fast, but
it's not really useable for anything other than that.
The port to SUN4's is pretty lame though.
Since so much of it is written in assembly language it doesn't port
well.