From: Martin Cracauer
Subject: Re: Lisp-to-JavaVM compiler
Date: 
Message-ID: <1996May15.084041.25660@wavehh.hanse.de>
···@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 <········@wavehh.hanse.de>  -  BSD User Group Hamburg
BSD, Lisp and other programming info http://www.bik-gmbh.de/~cracauer
From: erik hilsdale
Subject: Re: Lisp-to-JavaVM compiler
Date: 
Message-ID: <10402@832179981>
In article <······················@wavehh.hanse.de>,
Martin Cracauer <········@wavehh.hanse.de> wrote:
>···@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.

And it is non-tail-recursive (at least it was the last time I
looked at it).  One of the most annoying things about doing any
Scheme/Lisp-java conversion (imho) is the gymnastics necessary
for keeping tail-recursive behavior.

-erik
-- 
			   erik hilsdale (········@cs.indiana.edu)
	  	        http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/ehilsdal/