Re: what is the best language for go: Re: [computer-go] Scoreestimating

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Peter,

I'll take a closer look at common lisp.  Of course I am biased towards
really fast execution, approaching assembler.  But of course I want it
all, a really  high level language that is super  fast too.  It's hard
to get both I'm afraid.

Do you  believe that well written common  lisp can come close  to C in
performance  or is  your pitch  more that  it is  a much  higher level
language and with native code compilation at least is reasonably fast?

- Don



   Cc: computer-go <computer-go@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
   From: Peter Seibel <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
   Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 09:43:56 -0700
   User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux)
   Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

   Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

   > Python has Psyco which sounds really cool to me. It's a lot like a
   > just in time compiler and I wish this existed for Ruby. It's the
   > only reason I could consider swithing to Python. It requires no
   > changes to your source code.
   >
   > At some point you begin to wonder if it's worth it. The main reason
   > to turn away from C is to avoid complexities like this. When you
   > program like this, mixing languages, you are moving in the wrong
   > direction, making your code complicated again.

   Another possibility is to use a languge provides high-level
   abstraction (at and beyond the level of Python and Ruby) with
   compilation to machine code and the *option* of providing declarations
   that the compiler can use to generate even more efficient code. The
   language: Common Lisp. Folks whose experience with Lisp occured either
   10-20 years ago and/or in a single college computer science course
   (which probably taught Scheme) tend to have a highly distorted view of
   what Lisp is all about. If you're happy with your language choice,
   great. But folks looking for a better way might want to give Common
   Lisp a look.

   Truth in advertising: I'm currently at work on a book about Common
   Lisp which will be published by Apress later this year. Early drafts
   of the many of the chapters are available at:

     <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/>

   for folks who want to check out Common Lisp. It is targeted at folks
   who are already competent programmers in some other language and want
   to know how to actually *do* stuff with Lisp.


   -Peter

   P.S. ObGo (and language comparison): my interest in computer go is in
   the area of using genetic programming to develop go playing software.
   Many years ago I wrote a genetic programming system in Java for
   playing go whose great claim to fame was that it got to the point
   where it could consistently (100% of the time) beat a random player on
   a 5x5 board. Okay so that's not much. I've since been busy working,
   etc. and haven't had a chance to work on it. But once I finish my book
   I'm planning to get back to it reimplementing the whole system in
   Common Lisp. I have notebooks full of ideas about how to improve it.
   Re, language comparison. I have done a bit of work on the Common Lisp
   version and despite at the time being fairly new to Common Lisp I was
   much more productive working in Common Lisp than Java and I've been
   programming Java professionally since 1997. For whatever that's worth.

   -- 
   Peter Seibel                                      peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

	    Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp

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