Re: Common Lisp vs. Scheme

>>>>> "Ray" == Raymond Toy <toy(a)rtp.ericsson.se&gt; writes: Michael> Let me again mention that Scheme compilers are among the Michael> best-optimizing compilers for higher-level languages, and Michael> often achieve code performance comparable to C. Ray> Which compilers do this? I know Stalin is very good, but it compiles Ray> to C as does gambit, so these must have the performance hit. Michael> No, they must not. They perform high-level optimizations which can Michael> offset what going through C loses you. Scheme compilers which do very Michael> well currently are: Michael> - Gambit Michael> - Bigloo Michael> - Stalin Michael> - Chez Scheme I was too terse. I know these are good compilers. My comment was about which compilers get the performance hit in tail recursion via the C trampoline that you mentioned. I recall that the question of why tail recursion was slower than iteration was asked by Jeffrey Siskind, author of Stalin. His compiler was 20% (?) slower with tail-recursion than with iteration. This if now moving far from the original topic of Lisp vs. Scheme. I'm familiar with Lisp, and scheme. As a user, I'd be content with either---they're close enough for me that it doesn't matter too much. I suspect that's probably true for most users. Ray