axiom-developer
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [Axiom-developer] Terms of Surrender (was: BAD tim)


From: root
Subject: Re: [Axiom-developer] Terms of Surrender (was: BAD tim)
Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2005 13:15:49 -0500

in open source "advocacy is volunteering"

are you volunteering to write the "boot" compiler docs
and maintain it? can you set it up as a separate language
so we don't need to bootstrap it? you could write bookvol10
(boot language).

to do that you'll have to figure out what parts of axiom
are only there to support boot and you'll have to recode
the portions of the boot compiler that is written in lisp.

will you redo the boot language to support ansi destructuring setq?
structures? mcclim? clos? macros? defvars? 

the bottom line is that without these facilities axiom won't be
able to use the latest lisp developments. we will have essentially
forked the lisp used by axiom. this is something i do not want to do.
we are already off the leading edge of ansi.

yet developing those new boot facilities takes me off into designing 
extensions and enhancements to a language i don't like. and it's
a big project. Jenks and Burge spent a lot of time on it. why the
feature-debating alone could take years!

if we're going to enhance a language i'd much rather the time and
energy went into debating new ideas for the spad language.

since this is open source development you're welcome to document,
support, and enhance boot. for my part, i see no good reason for
it to live so i'm certainly not going to spend my time on this.

i'm advocating literate programming and have likely committed
the rest of my axiom working life to proving (or disproving)
the concept.

t

(btw, axiom lisp has a destructuring setq (which i ported from 
maclisp). we just don't use it. see doDSETQ and *DCQ* in vmlisp.lisp.
the boot compiler SHOULD use it but does not)





reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]