Re: GNU Extension Language Plans

Peter da Silva (peter@nmti.com)
Sat, 22 Oct 1994 00:05:01 GMT

In article <388pc2$5cf@csnews.cs.colorado.edu>,
Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Peter. See Larry's release notice posted elsewhere in these
> language areas for details, and/or glance at my implementation of a
> Patricia trie in perl, recently posted elsewhere in this thread.

Yes, I had a look at it. You didn't use postix if at all, that I could see.

> Do you want big languages and little programs or vice versa?

I want little languages and little programs. I don't believe you can't
get there (watch out, he's got something under his coat! Oh no! He's got
a Forth interpreter! Run!) from here...

> I guess all we need is a elisp-to-perl (or is that scheme-to-perl)
> translator now and even rms will be happy. :-) (Someone else reports
> working on a tcl-to-perl translator already, but progress is slow.)

I don't think that you're going to get a good translator from any of these
data-driven languages to a procedural language any time soon. Run-time
manipulation of code is too much a part of what makes them interesting.
And it's also too much a part of what makes them useful extension
languages.

-- 
Peter da Silva                                            `-_-'
Network Management Technology Incorporated                 'U`
1601 Industrial Blvd.     Sugar Land, TX  77478  USA
+1 713 274 5180                       "Hast Du heute schon Deinen Wolf umarmt?"