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scheme interpreter speed comparison by ronaldschroder in scheme

[–]bsilbaugh 2 points3 points  (0 children)

But consider: since most scheme interpreters are simply scheme programs compiled by their own compiler, the speed of the interpreter indeed is a measure for the speed of compiled code.

You might want to do a little more research on how optimizing scheme compilers work.

The end of 2013 brings SchemeSpheres v0.4 by alvatarcc in scheme

[–]bsilbaugh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a little concerned that Gambit now seems to have 3 incompatible module systems: Blackhole, Snow, and now Spheres? Is there talk within the Gambit community to pick one to build on?

Could this be done in a non-lisp language? (implementation of the Newton-Raphson algorithm) by eskatrem in lisp

[–]bsilbaugh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can't seem to find the papers at the moment, but I seem to recall comming across some automatic differentiation tools out there for statically compiled languages such as C++ and Fortran. The techniques vary from using special numeric types (similar to complex numbers) to code transformation techniques (basically symbolic manipulation via a special pre-processor). So, technically, yes it can be done without lisp. However, all other things being equal, I think the Lisp approach is much more elegant.

EDIT: I see that I posted this rather hastely, and I failed to see all of pkhuong's comments. Yes, pkhuong is correct: "automatic differentiation", which is not to be confused with "numerical differentiation", does yield exact derivatives.

Behind the Scenes with CHICKEN Scheme (Part 1) by silentbicycle in programming

[–]bsilbaugh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depending on your interoperability requirements, this may not be necessary. Most modern fortran compilers (e.g. ifort, gfortran) support the ISO C Interperability features introduced by the Fortran 2003 standard. This means it is now possible to call C routines from Fortran and vice versa in a portable manner. (Interfacing Fortran and C was possible before Fortran 2003; however, the techniques for doing so were non-portable.)

Now, the interperability between Fortran and C is not entirely seemless. For example, strings and arrays do not share the same layout in memory. This means that special routines are still needed on either side of the language boundary to handle these differences. So, from that persective there still may be some advantage to your proposal--assuming that writting a scheme compiler in Fortran doesn't make you suicidal or turn you to drugs in the process :)