merits of Lisp vs Python

[xscottg at gmail.com]

Paul Rubin wrote:
> xscottg at gmail.com writes:
> > I should assume you meant Common Lisp, but there isn't really any
> > reason you couldn't
> >
> >      (poke destination (peek source))
>
> That breaks the reliability of GC.  I'd say you're no longer writing
> in Lisp if you use something like that.  Writing in this "augmented
> Lisp" can be ok if well-localized and done carefully, but you no
> longer have the guarantees that you get from unaugmented Lisp.  By
> adding one feature you've removed another.

I don't agree.  The addresses (mapped registers or DMA or whatever) you
peak and poke in a device driver aren't going to be managed by the
garbage collector.

Even regarding interupts, I don't see a problem without a solution:

    (with-interupts-and-garbage-collection-disabled
       (poke destination (peek source))

You could even allocate memory (cons cells for instance) with the
interupts disabled, but it would be considered the same bad practice
that it would be if you did that in C.

Cheers,
    -Scott