On Jun 14, 1:07 am, bolega <gnuist...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am trying to compare LISP/Scheme/Python for their expressiveness. > > For this, I propose a vanilla C interpreter. I have seen a book which > writes C interpreter in C. > > The criteria would be the small size and high readability of the code. > > Are there already answers anywhere ? > > How would a gury approach such a project ? > > Bolega
This look like a huge project for an evaluation of expressiveness which result is obvious. Lisp (including Scheme) is more expressive than Python, for many definitions of expressiveness (see for instance http://www.ccs.neu.edu/scheme/pubs/scp91-felleisen.ps.gz if you like academic papers). However, who cares? What matters in everyday life are other things, like the availability of libraries, tools, easy of maintenance, etc. In your proposed project the choice of the parsing library would matter a lot. Writing languages is a domain where Lisp is traditionally strong, so you may find good libraries to help you with the task. My guess is that it would take more or less the same amount of effort both in Python and in Lisp. The place where Lisp has an advantage is writing an *embedded* language: then thanks to macros you could write a *compiled* sublanguage. Doing the same in Python is essentially impossible. Michele Simionato -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
