Re: the necessity of Lisp's Objects?

Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
wrote:
>> From: "John Thingstad" <jpth...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>> Mathematica does have recursion.
>> The problem comes when you try to compile the code.
>> But compiling code in Mathematica is unusual.
> 
> Somebody said if the code isn't compiled, it runs a thousand times
> slower. For any major program component, it would seem essential to
> compile it to give anywhere near decent speed. How would we feel
> about Lisp if the compiler didn't work on anything recusrive, for
> example READ had to always be run interpreted? Would Lispers
> tolerate that??

Exactly.

>> Compile is primarily meant to speed up numerical calculations.
> 
> So if you define a function that performs some sort of butterfly to
> efficiently perform arithmetic such as modular exponentiation on
> very large integers, and of course it's recursive, you lose???

You might be able to manually translate it into a loop. Also, compiling
code
changes its evaluation semantics in Mathematica and, in particular, you
lose access to all arbitrary-precision stuff.

> Does Mathematica provide sup****t for (unix) inter-process streams
> (pipes), so that you could have a Lisp sitting alongside it to
> perform calcuations that required recursion?

Yes. Mathematica also has .NET Link which allows you to write programs
in .NET languages that can use and be used by Mathematica programs. I
provided an example in my forthcoming book "F# for Scientists" of a small
F# program that evaluates Mathematica expressions several times faster
than
Mathematica does.

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?u