Drmeister has an interesting mini-benchmark that compares Common Lisp to C++ and Python. The real purpose of the post is to compare the performance of CCLASP Common Lisp to C++. CCLASP is a new Common Lisp system that drmeister is developing to tie together C++ and Common Lisp. The good news for him is that CCLASP has improved from being hundreds of times slower than C++ to just 4 times slower. It will be interesting to see where this ends up when the CCLASP compiler matures a bit more.
What I found most interesting about the post, though, was that SBCL was also tested in the benchmark and it outperformed C++. It’s a small test—calculating the 78th Fibonacci number 10,000,000 times—so it is by no means comprehensive. Still, it shows that the ridiculous FUD you still hear being dispensed about Lisp being slow is not true (and hasn’t been for years). See the post for the details, including the compile options that were used.
If you’re interested in the CLASP project, drmeister has a nice explanation for why he started it and what he hopes to accomplish. Judging from these intermediate results, he’s well on his way to a first rate Common Lisp implementation.