1. http://lambda.weblogs.com/2003/12/29

    <-- Lython
      posted by Aaron Brady at 10:20:37 AM on February 14, 2004  
  2. I find it hard to understand what the point of this is? It looks like python with lots of extra brackets. What am I missing?
      posted by John Burton at 03:38:35 AM on February 15, 2004  
  3. In short, it allows you to run Lisp programs using the Python bytecode interpreter. (If this was done in Java, people would say "it runs on the Java Virtual Machine".) Lisp is more flexible than Python, and has constructs that Python lacks, like macros. Lython allows you to mix the two.

    What would be really cool is if you could write a function (or macro) in Lisp, compile it, then call it from Python. Maybe this is already possible, I don't know.
      posted by Hans at 09:24:02 AM on February 15, 2004  
  4. Seems to me the best approach would be to make it 100% CPython semantics but with Lisp syntax (fully interoperable with normal syntax)--then you get the best of both worlds.

    This way, it'd be just a different read/parse/eval loop (with same eval--you'd "compile" the Lisp into normal byte codes; or, even better, just "pretty-print" the Lisp resulting from macro expansion into normal Python syntax, and eval that).

    That's the way I do it--fairly easy task, maximum leverage, lives 100% in the normal Python world, fully interoperability, and YOU HAVE MACROS! Can't be overstated.

      posted by Chris Ryland at 10:35:45 AM on February 26, 2004  
  5. Hmm, isn't that what Lython does?
      posted by Hans at 01:56:54 PM on February 26, 2004