lkcl: dunno who nigel is :), but why would you port Python code to C (speed?)? or think that porting python to C would be easy?

Porting python to Lisp might be easy.

See Python v(or rather i)s Lisp.

Once you're porgramming at a high-level, to go back to the low-level is hard -- a straight port would require list/hash table libraries, maybe ffcall and the like, all of which makes it pointless to go to the low-level. It would be better to just have a decently fast high level language.

Mind you, I'm not trying to evangelize. You do what you want :)

Besides, there's no ideal computer language, though Lisp gets pretty close (IMNSHO).

Cheers,

Nico