About alternatives to Matlab

[Jon Harrop]

Carl Banks wrote:
> Jon Harrop wrote:
>> What about translating the current Python interpreter into a language
>> with a GC, like MLton-compiled SML? That would probably make it much
>> faster, more reliable and easier to develop.
> 
> I doubt it would work too well.  MLton-compiled SML's semantics differ
> from Python's in subtle ways, and covering the edge cases usually means
> you have to do all the stuff you thought you would avoid by using
> another dynamically-typed language.   Translating MTton-compiled SML
> integers to Python ints would work probably 99 percent of the time, but
> in the end you'd essentially have to reimplement the Python int type.
> 
> If you're going to go through all that work, you might as well
> translate it to C or directly to machine code.

That's not what I meant. I was referring to translating the Python
_interpreter_ into another language, not translating Python programs into
other languages. MLton-compiled SML is especially fast at symbolic
manipulation, e.g. interpreters, so it will be probably be as fast or
faster than the current Python interpreter. Then you can start boiling the
interpreter down, removing the GC for a start because MLton already has a
much better GC...

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
Objective CAML for Scientists
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists/index.html?usenet