From: Ranco Marcus
Subject: difference metainterpreter and metacircular interpreter
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 11:43:02 +0000
Message-ID: <afc9l0$mia$1@rl0001.unimaas.nl>

Hi,

Could anybody give his thoughts on the difference between a metainterpreter
and a metacircular interpreter?
Some resources (for example http://www.sics.se/~klasorsv/papers/icpap92.ps)
state that they are one and the same, but I have the feeling they are not.

I think that a metainterpreter for Scheme, for example, could be any
interpreter interpreting a subset of Scheme, say Scheme*. A metacircular
interpreter is a metainterpreter that is able to interpret itself, i.e. its
source code is written in the language it is able to interpreter: Scheme*.

Thanks,

Ranco


P.S. What is the correct spelling: metainterpreter or meta-interpreter?