Ted Leung on the air : Lunacy, Scheme, and Python

[via ??? I forgot -- I'm sorry ] Lunacy is a vm/compiler for Scheme that was also to have a front end for a dialect of Python. I wish that this were still being actively developed. It would be great to have something like this for Python.

Should that be 'Scheme' rather than 'Schema' in the title?
Posted by Hamish Lawson at Fri Jan 30 01:08:18 2004

Fixed
Posted by Ted Leung at Fri Jan 30 01:15:05 2004

There is a project actively working on a Python front end for PLT Scheme. It was presented at the 2003 Scheme workshop. Dr Scheme already works with it:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/Tmp/spy.jpg
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/Tmp/spy2.jpg
Posted by Robert Sayre at Fri Jan 30 05:58:49 2004

Synchronicity is annoying. Has scheme always gotten this much attention and I just never noticed it, or are lots of people talking about scheme more often now?

-Brian
Posted by Brian McCallister at Fri Jan 30 08:09:34 2004

I don't think translating languages is very effective -- besides compilers that compile to C, there aren't really any implementations of utility. And even compiling to C is always a stop-gap, not a real answer.

Or, you get "dialects" ala .NET, where it's really just one language with multiple syntaxes.

At least, that's my conclusion from when I wrote my own Scheme language translator (in this case translating Tcl to Scheme, which is much easier than Python). The utility is questionable, and you get an accurate implementation of the language, or you get good performance, but never both, and usually neither. Jython, as an example, is a useful tool, but only when the JVM is a prerequesite. CPython will always beat Jython.

From Jeremy's description of the Python to PLT Scheme translator, it sounds like they are hitting the same problems. The problems probably aren't unsurmountable, but the effort required is probably no less than starting from scratch without a Scheme interpreter.
Posted by Ian Bicking at Fri Jan 30 10:29:04 2004

From recent discussion on the PLT Scheme list, it's not so much intended to provide a production quality runtime environment as to provide a bridge for Python programmers to learn Scheme.

http://list.cs.brown.edu/pipermail/plt-scheme/2004-January/004616.html
Posted by Gordon Weakliem at Fri Jan 30 12:25:57 2004

Brian,

You need to join the Scheme/Lisp communities on Orkut ;-). I've been talking about Scheme/Lisp on this blog since I started it, albeit less now that my day job involves Python.

Acceptance of languages like Java and Python is slowly leading us back to the point where many of the ideas in Lisp/Scheme are fashionable.
Posted by Ted Leung at Fri Jan 30 13:27:51 2004

The reason that I posted this is that I'm interested in efforts to speed up Python, regardless of method.

I think that PLT implementation is interesting if they can get their tools to work decently on Python code as well as Scheme.

I'd like a language like Python or Scheme/Lisp that I can use with fewer areas to be concerned about performance, and with a really good IDE.
Posted by Ted Leung at Fri Jan 30 13:30:27 2004

Ted, I'm no expert (barely a novice) on understanding the issues, but I think that one of the issues with doing a python implementation in Scheme is the whole idea of metadata hacking. This quote sums it up: "If you don't care about mutable classes then I can give you Fast Python."
http://list.cs.brown.edu/pipermail/plt-scheme/2004-January/004653.html

A couple more relevant posts in the thread.
http://list.cs.brown.edu/pipermail/plt-scheme/2004-January/004635.html
http://list.cs.brown.edu/pipermail/plt-scheme/2004-January/004667.html
http://list.cs.brown.edu/pipermail/plt-scheme/2004-January/004685.html
Posted by Gordon Weakliem at Fri Jan 30 15:00:14 2004

There is a project actively working on a Python front end for PLT Scheme. It was presented at the 2003 Scheme workshop. Dr Scheme already works with it:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/Tmp/spy.jpg
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/Tmp/spy2.jpg
Posted by Robert Sayre at Fri Jan 30 15:31:54 2004

Posted by Pingback from Ted Leung on the air : computers/programming/python/802 : Python vs Lisp at Sun Feb 1 23:10:59 2004

I see the emoticon, but are there really Lisp/Scheme communities on Orkut? If so, can you invite me? I've commented here before, so that makes us friends, right?
Posted by Ralph Richard Cook at Wed Feb 4 07:35:32 2004

Are you aware of Psyco, the specializing Python compiler by Armin Rigo?

http://psyco.sf.net
Posted by Jaen Saul at Wed Feb 4 12:51:16 2004

Ralph,

I need an e-mail address -- e-mail me. And the communities are such as are available on Orkut, which is to say, list of like minded people.
Posted by Ted Leung at Wed Feb 4 13:52:47 2004

Jaen,

Yes, I"m aware of Psyco, Stackless, and Pypy. I'd be very happy to see these ideas come into mainstream python
Posted by Ted Leung at Wed Feb 4 13:53:48 2004