I wonder if Python's metaclasses would get you what you're describing. Some thought would have to go into the primitives required to generate the constructs for the destination language(s), but metaclasses would allow you to serialize to different languages fairly easily once the primitives are in place. This approach isn't nearly as elegant as Lisp, but I think it takes what you're describing out of the "pretty much impossible" realm.
Overall though I agree with you, I just had a slight disagreement with the "pretty much impossible" claim.
I just had a slight disagreement with the "pretty much impossible" claim.
Thanks for pointing that out. Being a scientist, I too would take issue with this :) hence, I'm extremely interested in discovering whether this would be a workable, real-world solition for the problem I described.
I'm out of time right now, but would you mind emailing me? (Address is on my profile page.) I'd really love to get your thoughts about a couple followup questions that I have.
Overall though I agree with you, I just had a slight disagreement with the "pretty much impossible" claim.