Subject: Re: what lisp can do that C can't do
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 11:26:41 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3231228399661732@naggum.net>

* Barry Watson
| How hard was that?

  Well, if you want to do something that might be similar in functionality,
  write for and compile it into a shared, relocatablec object, dynamically
  load it into the running image and use it there lika a regular function.
  People do this with so-called "plugins".  This is not _that_ much harder
  than what Common Lisp does so naturally we do not even think about it,
  but it indicates what kinds of things are done _for_ you in Common Lisp.
  Faking things along the path of least resistance with an executable is
  not the way to convince people that you can deal with the conplexity of
  the issue at hand.  Making this work on a single system is not that hard,
  but making it an intrinsic feature of an environment is something else.
  Could you show us what that would look like in C?  Has it been done?
-- 
  In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
  In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.

  70 percent of American adults do not understand the scientific process.