Perhaps we disagree about the term "static compilation". SBCL and other lisp compilers read a source file and produce native code which is then executed. If c

Perhaps we disagree about the term "static compilation". SBCL and other lisp compilers read a source file and produce native code which is then executed. If certain dynamic features are not executed, then the compiler (also part of the runtime in much the same way as libc is part of a C executable) is not invoked at runtime. If dynamic features are needed, then the expression is eval'ed by compiling it to native code and executing it. This is lighter and more powerful (for language reasons) than spawning a process to invoke a C compiler that produces a shared library which is dlopen'd on the spot, but I claim it is a closer analogy to what is happening than a JIT. In summary, I submit that (i) Python eval is no more dynamic than Lisp eval and (ii) it is acceptable to use the term "statically compiled" even if the standard library includes "compile".