On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 11:23 PM, BartC <b...@freeuk.com> wrote: > On 03/08/2016 09:58, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > >> Python is sometimes described as a Lisp with more sensible syntax, so its >> not >> surprising that it is relatively simple to translate Python to Lisp and >> visa >> versa. > > > Translating Python would be easier if everything was implemented as Python. > But sometimes you try to find a .py import module and it doesn't seem to > exist anywhere. (sys.py for example). > > I would like to see how such references are translated to Lisp.
Ultimately, you _cannot_ implement everything in Python, unless you create some sort of crazy fudge like having function pointers with real language support, in which case you're writing C code. Some modules have to be implemented in the host language (C for CPython, Java for Jython, etc), in order to provide lower-level functionality. You probably *could* implement the whole math module in pure Python, but you don't want to; and cryptography, likewise, you theoretically could implement in pure Python, and you'd get the same return value, but you risk opening yourself up to timing-based attacks. How, from Lisp, would you call on OpenSSL or another lower-level library? Or do you have to reimplement everything? What about simple things like opening files, how do you do that without native code? ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
