Re: [PATCH] Avoid `SCM_VALIDATE_LIST ()'

[Andy Wingo]

On Sun 31 Aug 2008 17:12, Han-Wen Nienhuys <address@hidden> writes:

> On a tangent, is anyone still seriously considering to run Emacs atop GUILE?
> (It looks a bit like a travesty if we're trying to accomodate elisp while
> also trying to follow standards like SRFI-x and RxRS)  

I think it makes a *lot* of sense to compile elisp to the VM. I don't
plan on doing so myself, but if the VM gets good enough, it could be
enhanced with the instructions that elisp needs, if any, and it would be
possible to run emacs lisp code, and possibly even emacs itself, on
guile.

Guile-VM already has a language-agnostic compiler, repl, etc. Scheme
compilation starts with a language-specific reader then translation to
GHIL, at which point the generic compilation proceeds. You could plug in
an elisp reader and translator (see
module/language/scheme/translate.scm) to GHIL, or compile directly to
GLIL.

I don't know where the boundary lies regarding C primitives, though. I
think we'll eventually want to make VM-implemented functions as fast or
faster than the C ones, through a tracing JIT or something. So you could
make elisp reference different C primitives, or implement its primitives
in elisp (or scheme, or whatever), or make our C primitives do both.

I don't know how this impacts the current patch though -- probably not
at all :)

Andy
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