Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
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From: cdjeris@midway.uchicago.edu (Christopher Jeris)
Subject: Implementing Scheme in GC'd language
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Summary: Write a GC, or just use the existing one?
Keywords: scheme ml gc implementation
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Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 19:00:55 GMT
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The recent Rozas/Blume et al. discussion inspired me to learn some ML,
and (since someone helpfully posted a definition of Scheme object as an
ML sum type) I think it would make a good exercise to write a little
Scheme interpreter in ML.  My question is, if I were to write a Scheme
in ML, Modula-3 or some other language which already has a runtime
including garbage collection, does it make more sense to write a separate
heap-management/GC facility (thus producing something closer to what
a standalone Scheme written in C is) or to use the storage management
facilities already provided by the language (producing something closer
to what SICP calls an "evaluator" rather than an "interpreter") ?

Maybe this is a silly question and the answer is obviously "use the
facilities that are already there" -- but as I am basically self-taught
and inexperienced in the ways of computer science I don't really have
an instinct that tells me to go one way or the other.

Christopher Jeris		University of Chicago Math:
  c-jeris@uchicago.edu		  The mother of all functors awaits you.
