comp.lang.misc Google Group

Re: core features and functions required in modern programming languages

2008-08-30T12:26:31Z

So stop using a single word to refer to them!! Lisp implements
parse-tree transformations. Cpp implements text-chunk
transformations. The former are much more structured than the
latter, hence much more useful for transforming source code prior
to compilation or other use. When you say C isn't as good as Lisp,

Re: core features and functions required in modern programming languages

2008-08-30T12:07:30Z

Wrong. The assembler for the IBM 1620 was called "S.P.S." which
stood for "Symbolic Programming System". The name "assembly
language" either was invented later or somehow bypassed the public
relations for the IBM 1620. I seem to remember about the same time
the IBM 7090 and 7094 used BAL as the name for their assembly

Re: core features and functions required in modern programming languages

2008-08-30T12:32:26Z

Don't you think C was already slow enough compared to Lisp without all
this?
An alternative would be run-time code generation, there are several
libraries to do that, including gnu lightning.
I heard Apple has it well integrated in Xcode, in a debugging context.
This is helped by Objective-C which is more dynamic a language than C

Re: core features and functions required in modern programming languages

2008-08-30T12:32:10Z

Strings need to be in the language, if you want SYMBOL-NAME and INTERN.
For "string literals" you need reader macros, or have them in the language.
(Lisp only has symbol, integers, rationals and floating-point numbers
built-in in its scanner; all the rest is user modifiable reader
macros).

Re: core features and functions required in modern programming languages

2008-08-30T11:30:43Z

That's great! Now in theory you *can", by extreme hackery, make new
functions [in C] at runtime. Here's how:
- Make up a new filename that isn't the same as any other filename
currently in use or that any other process at this very moment
might try to make. (Suggestion: Use your own process-ID as part

Re: core features and functions required in modern programming languages

2008-08-30T11:25:16Z

This is not true anymore. On modern processors, the CPU can pause,
entering in a state where it consumes much less energy. This is of
vital importance for laptop computers, but it is also a good marketing
point for desktops (and even servers, they're not all busy 100% of the
time).
[link]

Re: core features and functions required in modern programming languages

2008-08-30T09:48:04Z

I think that at a bare mininum, today's concept of HLL includes
first class objects with some tagging or memory-management system
to distinguish (at runtime) various types of object from each
other, so that containers such as arrays and self-balancing binary
search trees can contain a mix of different kinds of objects that

Re: core features and functions required in modern programming languages

2008-08-30T08:31:27Z

More to the point: First class *anonymous* functions. If you have
to declare the name of every function at compile time, it sorta
defeats the idea of first-class functions. If you don't need to do
that, but the runtime system needs to invent a "name" for each new
function and make sure it doesn't duplicate the name of some other

Re: core features and functions required in modern programming languages

2008-08-30T07:11:48Z

I think we're talking past each other due to some misleading
jargon. The word "interpretor" has come to mean the read-eval-print
loop, which is itself no longer exactly that in most
implementations, more like a read-compile-execute-print loop. Still
there are two modes of compilation, block compilation used to

Re: Typs and Classes

2008-08-28T23:12:42Z

The details of the program code are still a subjective way of seeing your
application. Its almost a question of a preference for chocolate or vanilla
or sherbert. All of those are fairly refeshing on a summer picnic. You'll
see soon, if you practice, that there is no real cause for getting so
intimate with the code because the machine language generated is the same,

Ann: Intel x86 JIT for LITTLE available

2008-08-26T14:28:54Z

Finally, I found some time to implement JIT support on the Intel x86
IA32 architecture for the LITTLE VM.
The corresponding LITTLE binary release 0.8.0b is available for
download at
[link]
Currently, Linux is the only supported platform.
Btw., Intel x86 instruction encoding is a mess ...!!!

Re: Programming Languages Decisions

2008-08-24T00:51:54Z

As stated in an earlier post, this application is intended to provide
researchers with invaluable information regarding earthquakes and how they
might be forecast. If it is as successful as I believe it should be then
people around the world interested in this science will begin moving the
effort forward.

Re: Is Open Source viable for very small teams or individual developers?

2008-08-21T11:30:27Z

I'm not sure open source makes much difference. Let's face it all
commercial organizations steal ideas from other products that they think
they can improve on. Big fish either buy or copy ideas from little
fish. Where I work our product managers get very excited about others'
features and want them too!

Re: Is Open Source viable for very small teams or individual developers?

2008-08-20T21:54:28Z

...
...
Sure. I should be clear that they are intended to be separate
projects. I sometimes find that they are moving in the same direction
- or at least heading towards supporting the same programming model
but I'm not too comfortable with that and try to avoid it. They should
be separate.
I'm sure you are right that if someone does come up with some good

Re: Programming Languages Decisions

2008-08-20T21:47:46Z

I'm sure your program will be embraced by your community.
Stable however, implies longevity. There is a littany of problems
surrounding the wrapping of code around free software, and the interfaces
they provide.
Those thousands are your intellectual customers. When upgrades happen, all
the way from the platform, up several steps, customers get irritated when