Re: evaluating numbers

[Paul Eggert]

On 4/28/20 4:16 PM, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> @Paul I was asking about C because it seems to me that this part of emacs 
> lisp is implemented in C, so if C does that then my uninformed idea is that 
> it's easier create a similar implementation for emacslisp ?

It's a bit simpler for the C interpreter to treat characters as integers, but
it's not simpler enough that it makes a significant difference.

The main idea, I expect, was that Emacs Lisp programs would be simpler and/or
more-compatible with other Lisp implementations and/or better in some other way;
any compatibility with C was secondary. But again, Richard is the authority 
here.