Hi Ben,
Congratulations for sending the first post to CLPython-devel :-)
my interest in the project was to attempt to port the large number of interesting and high quality pure python libraries out there to lisp. seems like a worthwhile goal. i would have expected other lispers to realize there's a lot of low hanging fruit out there.
It's the easy approach, and it more or less proves that Python as language is a subset of Common Lisp. Well, except for generators, as CL does not have a 'yield'-like operations.
presumably this can be simulated either with CPS or a state machine (that's how C# does it, at least.)
Right now all the b*.py benchmark files can be run successfully on
that's fantastic!
I had listed the two most important dependencies (in my eyes) on Allegro CL at the moment. I know about the existence of CL-Yacc; never used it, though I assume it should not be too much work to let CLPython play nicely with it.
As for the environments, I'd have to look more into that. Allegro CL has extended the CLTL2 environments, and I use ACL's functionality.
If it's possible to use custom declaration types (declare (pydecl ...)); and if it's possible to get the value of those declarations from an &environment variable in macros, that might be enough already for what the Python compiler needs.
it looks like the environment support in sbcl is somewhat rudimentary. in particular, there is no define-declaration. i don't know if it would be difficult to add.
however, franz has generously supplied a portable environments implementation
http://lispwire.com/entry-proganal-envaccess-des
which they claim works on sbcl. it is LLGPL.
You mention creating a compatiblity layer. Perhaps ACL-compat offers a lot of the desired functionality already?
that's an idea. another idea is to use the various proto-standards that are floating around for things like network, fs, et cetera.
Good to see you're interested :-)
unfortunately i'm supposed to be finishing a dissertation soon. so i don't have time myself in the short term. but eventually i will have time and hope to be able to help.
keep us informed!
regards, B