A vision for Parrot
A.M. Kuchling
akuchlin at ute.mems-exchange.org
Wed Nov 6 12:46:09 EST 2002
In article <3DC8CDDD.7050103 at mindspring.com>,
Andrew Dalke wrote:
> It didn't happen. Writing those translators are hard because each
> of the languages has different object models, which must be implemented
> nearly perfectly. Guile is a full-fledge language built on years of
There's also the problem of motivation: who's going to write those
translators?
Tcl and Python programmers? They have nicely usable
implementations already. Translation to Guile would buy them
nothing, except for having to rewrite every single C extension.
Guile programmers? If they're Guile programmers, they must like
programming in Scheme. Why would they work on translators for languages
they'll never use?
A Guile programmer might write a Python translator out of pure
bloody-minded evangelism, of course, but it would require supernatural
determination to continue *maintaining* it for the long-term, and
there would still be the risk that the outside community would look at
the translator and ignore it, saying (it's too slow | it doesn't run
extension X that I really need | Guile doesn't run on my platform).
Similar arguments can applied to translators to Parrot, of course.
--amk (www.amk.ca)
ABBESS: In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest
To be disturbed would mad man or beast.
-- _The Comedy of Errors_, V, i
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