Tim On November 6, 2005 1:16 PM you wrote: > > 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).
I agree that "advocacy is volunteering" so yes volunteering to document boot is the least I can do, having spent so much bandwidth and sweat trying to defend it. :) > > 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. > I know it wont be easy. I wasn't thinking in terms of recoding anything from lisp to boot or vice versa - just providing a sound documentation of the design and use of boot as it stands now. > will you redo the boot language to support ansi destructuring > setq? structures? mcclim? clos? macros? defvars? I don't see why this should be necessary. Boot already supports destructuring setq. > > 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. I agree. I think that some ansi constructs can be introduced without any changes to boot - simply using the escape to lisp where necessary as explained by Jergen. > we are already off the leading edge of ansi. I am not sure what you mean by that. > > 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! I also do not want that. > > 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. I agree completely. > > 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. No problem. I understand your view, even though I don't agree. I just didn't like the feeling of my going in this direction while you seem to be going in exactly the opposite. That is the reason I am looking for a compromise. > > i'm advocating literate programming and have likely committed > the rest of my axiom working life to proving (or disproving) > the concept. > Three cheers! On this we are in complete agreement. I agree 100% with the emphasis on literate programming - so much so that I have a hard time understanding why you feel that it might be necessary to prove it. > 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) > Thanks, that is interesting. I will look into this a little more. Do you know if Spad makes any use of these macros? Regards, Bill Page. _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
