Hi Frank, > I have a minor nit here: it's not an image that's the problem, it's > living in the image.
Yes. This is pretty much what I was thinking about. Thanks for the clarification. > Lisps are image-based systems, but one tends to construct one's > working image from a base image + extras. SBCL's SAVE-LISP-AND-DIE > lets you turn that image into an executable. I don't think anyone > would particularly care - or even know - that their TextLint is, on > the inside, some small image + VM. In short, I don't think it's a lot > of work to get something ostensibly a native executable, and I don't > think that compiling to a native executable's particularly valuable. > (Java applications aren't compiled to a native executable, for > instance!) Firstly, for many reasons, I think Java is the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to software development. However, it is a testament to the power of good marketing ;-) I'm going to resist going on a rant. It would suffice to say that the packaging of Java apps is one of the many things that I dislike. I like native executables, because they are so much easier to package and distribute. They also play nicer with the OS in terms of shared libraries etc. Each OS already has a well known mechanism for dealing with them. There just... more comfortable. The ability to embed the VM solves this nicely as well (ie; ECL, Gambit-C, etc.) It would be pretty cool to have multiple instances of the Smalltalk VM running in an embedded fashion. Thanks, Gerry
