The VMLISP file exists because the original sources were in MACLISP and were ported to VMLISP. Eventually they were ported to an early version of common lisp.
The basic strategy was to leave the sources unchanged and write common lisp equivalents for the maclisp and vmlisp functions were possible. Many functions like EvalAndFileACTQ were possible to emulate closely enough that "it works for axiom". We were not trying for generality. When we couldn't write the equivalent function we rewrote the code. This work was done in parallel with the development of AKCL. Bill Schelter developed AKCL under contract to IBM and I helped with some of that developement. Not all of the functions in common lisp existed or worked at the time. Macros were used instead of 'Inline' because macro-expanded code could be better optimized than 'inline' directive code. Many tests were made by using the disassemble function and counting actual machine instructions generated. In theory the two are equivalent but in practice they are not. t _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
