> And, you do realize that one of the simplest languages for compiler writers, lisp, doesn't have to move heaven/earth to make that calculation work out how you want it.
I've written a C compiler and am currently writing a Lisp compiler, and I'm not sure where you get the idea that Lisp is a simple language for compiler writers. Lisp's simple representation belies a very complicated runtime, to the point that the majority of Lisp implementations don't support compilation at all--they're interpreted only.
