[Gardeners] What does it really mean to use a Lisp image?

[Patrick Giagnocavo 717-201-3366]

On Sat, 2005-12-17 at 23:14, Brad Beveridge wrote:
> On 12/17/05, Partap Davis <cheezfood at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hmm.  So even with a lisp implementation that compiles to native code,
> > you're still, in essence, running a virtual machine that handles (and
> > possibly compiles) function calls?  This thread is probably not the place
> > for it, but I'd like to learn more about this...any pointers on where to
> > look?
> 
> I'm also very new to Lisp, but I don't think a VM is generally the
> right idea.  I tend to think of my Lisp image as an operating system. 
> The image has a built in interpreter and/or compiler.  When you

It depends on the implementation.  Some have both a compiled and an interpreted mode (CMUCL), while some only do interpreted mode (CLISP), and others actually compile the code by writing a C language source file and compiling that using a C compiler, then loading it into the running image (ECLS , ecls.sourceforge.net).

--Patrick