>>75
You smug lisp weenies always bring up TCO like it's the ultimate solution to everything
I did no such thing. I simply used TCO as an example of how not everything that looks like a function call in Lisp necessary translates to a function call in machine code. If that were the case then TCO wouldn't be possible.
needing an optimisation for it to be possible to do anything useful with the language at all is a big FAIL.
It's a pretty trivial optimization. Just write a
while loop that evaluates the expression until it's self-evaluating and you're done. Inlining is simple too. Just expand and reduce the expression until it's simple as possible. That can easily been done at compile time.
How hard is it to implement TCO and
inline in C? The fact that C compilers hardly implement the former and can't even guarantee the latter should be a big giveaway.
But, I digress. Yes, C beats Lisp regarding raw speed. So? Who gives a shit? The guy writing for embedded hardware, sure. The guy writing the OS calls running constantly, sure. But if you care about nanoseconds at runtime in userland, then you're crazy. If you enjoy writing low-level code, good for you. If Lispers enjoy writing high-level code, good for them. Why do you care?