Re: Smart variables, dumb variables

[rm]

On Wed, Aug 14, 2002 at 11:09:36PM +0200, Marius Vollmer wrote:
> address@hidden writes:
> 
> > > I had in mind that the compiler could use the bit to decide if it is
> > > allowed to inline some functions (such as '+', 'car', ...) but I no
> > > longer think that would be the right way.
> > 
> > Wouldn't that imply that certain functions will never be 'generic' ?
> 
> What do you mean with generic?

oops, i forgot to mention goops. I was thinking of GOOPS generic 
metods:
|  
|  (define-generic +)
|  (define-method (+ (a <string>) (b <string>))
|    (string-append a b))
|  
|  (+ 41 1)
|  => 42
|  
|  (+ "Foo" "bar")
|  => "Foobar"
|  

> The way I imagine it, is that you can put declarations on variables
> that the compiler is allowed to trust at compile-time, and one such
> declaration could be "this variable holds the R5RS primitive procedure
> '+' and will always hold it."  

In the presence of a generic method system (i.e. function dispatch on
the type signature of the arguments) this seems to be rather non-trivial,
or do you want to propose to make guile a strongly typed language ?

> This is a reasonable declaration to
> make.  The compiler could then inline the fixnum part of '+' and call
> out-of-line code for the rest.
> 
> So my next proposal is to add declarations to variables... :-)

And a type system ;-)

  Ralf 
> -- 
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