Subject: Re: Common Lisp interpretation by emacs
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 2000/03/24
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3162910141905443@naggum.no>

* Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
| #1 and #2 don't seem to be related to the dialect of Lisp that Emacs
| happens to be written in.

  I prefixed what I wrote with "what I have wanted that can't be done in
  the current Emacs are:", so I assume you ignored that context instead of
  merely overlooking it, but it is in fact crucial, even to your supposed
  counter-argument.  Emacs Lisp has some _fundemental_ limitations that
  Common Lisp the language and its several implementations don't have.
  obviously, however, you _could_ do anything in any language given enough
  effort and resources, but whether you want to is _usually_ a matter of
  convenience and pragmatics for most people -- the absence of available
  resources is usually an argument against "can".  if you will, Emacs Lisp
  makes certain tasks prohibitively inconvenient and/or impractical.  for
  me, that matters a lot.  if it doesn't matter to you, I expect a free
  implementation soon.

| #3 doesn't depend on ANSI CL, but just the fact that most CL
| implementations also include foreign function interfaces; but there's no
| good reason why a similar FFI couldn't be included in Emacs Lisp.

  then you should have no objection to "then go do it", right?
  I promise that I'll listen to your argument _after_ you have done it.

#:Erik