Re: [Axiom-developer] Aldor and Lisp

[C Y]

--- Camm Maguire <address@hidden> wrote:

> Greetings!
> 
> Martin Rubey <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > So I'd *rather* go the other way: replace Boot by Lisp. The Lisp
> > Community is rapidly growing, and it would be a shame not to be 
> > able to connect with them. I am absolutely convinced that Lisp is
> > the ideal language for writing compilers for others. Of course, I 
> > realize that my post on comp.lang.lisp has gone
> > unanswered so far, but I don't give up hope.
> 
> Indeed, the internal trees of gcc et.al. resemble lisp quite closely.
> But do we have to write a new compiler, or just modify SPAD?  I have
> some experience with the GCL compiler, which is written in lisp, so
> may be able to help.  But it seems a lot of work compared to building
> on what already exists.

A possibly related question, or rather consideration:  Given the effort
to make Axiom an exercise in literate programming, would we want to
document in a literate fashion the design and implementation of the
parser, compiler, what have you as well?  My thinking on this is a very
definite yes, particularly given how vital such fundamental parts are
to the correct functioning of the rest of the Axiom system.  I don't
know what the state of the code defining the SPAD compiler is, or how
convoluted the SPAD->boot->lisp situation currently is, but I submit
that untangling the mess here and now as part of the Aldor language
effort would undoubtedly pay long term dividends.  Whether the best way
to do that is document and refactor what is there or simply define
Aldor->Lisp and SPAD->Lisp compilers from scratch I don't know -
anybody have an opinion on that one?

Cheers,
CY


        
                
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