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From: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer)
Subject: Re: Lisp-to-JavaVM compiler
Message-ID: <1996May15.084041.25660@wavehh.hanse.de>
Organization: BSD User Group Hamburg
References: <TMB.96May12165200@best.best.com>
Date: Wed, 15 May 96 08:40:41 GMT
Lines: 27
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.lisp:21596 comp.lang.scheme:15854

tmb@best.com (.) writes:

>Is anybody actively working on a Lisp-to-JavaVM compiler?  I have
>heard several rumors, but nobody has been willing to step forward.

This is a scheme system that is written in Java.

   http://www.winternet.com/~sgml/kawa/index.html

I don't know anything more, but it seems it is a pure interpreter, not
a compiler to Java-VM Code.

>The Java community gives us a widely available, pretty efficient
>runtime with extensive native libraries.  Compiling Lisp to it
>isn't all that hard--it just needs to be done...

After a first look at the Java VM it seems (for me) that representing
dynamically typed values might become very inefficient. One would have
to write a boxed representation with just Java VM instructions, no
chance to use native machine instructions. Do you have more specific
ideas about this?

Martin
-- 
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Martin Cracauer <cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de>  -  BSD User Group Hamburg
BSD, Lisp and other programming info http://www.bik-gmbh.de/~cracauer
