macrakis@harvard.ARPA (Stavros Macrakis) (03/19/85)
WHEREAS it has become increasingly obvious that those discussing this issue on this list are unwilling to read each others' contributions carefully; and in particular WHEREAS some persist in confusing a language design with its existing implementations and with its potential implementations; and WHEREAS Lisp advocates especially (on this list; on others, it's C or Pascal or Ada or APL advocates) fail to see weak points in their own systems and strong points in others'; and WHEREAS it is likely that all those not participating in the discussion and most of those who are, are tired of it; NOW THEREFORE, I hereby withdraw from the discussion of numerical efficiency in Lisp and DO DECLINE to rebut comments on my earlier contributions while continuing to maintain their soundness. NONETHELESS I am willing to receive and will study any substantive contributions to this question, such as documented benchmarks.