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Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: Boot, Virtual Machine


From: Gabriel Dos Reis
Subject: Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: Boot, Virtual Machine
Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 22:47:08 -0500 (CDT)

On Tue, 22 May 2007, Stephen Wilson wrote:

| 
| Gaby,
| 
| Thanks for responding.
| 
| Gabriel Dos Reis <address@hidden> writes:
| >    The Boot macro system was there before I got interested in Boot.
| 
| Do your have plans to expand on its current facilities?

If people think it is something they really want, then I can give it higher
priority. 
So until today, nobody raised this issue -- it was only on my todo list. 

| > Basically you define Boot macros the same way you define Boot
| > functions except that you replace the "==" token with "==>"
| > For example, if you can write the memeq macro as:
| > 
| >    memeq(e,l) ==>
| >      MEMBER(a,l, KEYWORD::TEST, function EQ)
| 
| OK.  My curiosity was aroused since you claimed that Boot macros would
| suffice in place of Lisp macros.  I was hoping for something more
| substantial than this.

Well, it would be much easier to tell me what *you* than me telling you 
want.  My statement is based on the part of Axiom that was manually converted
from Boot to Lisp.

| I have not been involved in this community for a long time, so I did
| not want to patronize you with a definition of `interesting'.
| 
| In Lisp, the correspondence between data and code is fundamental.

You have the same thing in Boot.  
But, it is not that fundamental for building an Axiom system than
people actually sometimes  want to make it.

| [snip]
| 
| > At some point, I had a patch to clean up the translation but:
| >   (1) there seems to be no use of macros in Boot codes
| 
| I don't code boot, so OK.  Thus, no sense in trying to define a Lisp
| equivalent macro system.

Well, when I look at src/interp, I see more Boot codes than Lisp codes.  So,
my statement is based on the actual things in that directory.

[...]

| > Note also that one always have the escape character (!) to 
| > insert raw Lisp code if one really wants to.
| 
| I vaguely recall this facility, but the memory does not jive with my
| concept of Lisp macros at any level.
| 
| > Is there any contrived used of macros in Axiom that is not covered by
| > the above scheme?
| 
| Well, there may very well be a few examples in the *.lisp.pamplet
| files.

Yes.

-- Gaby




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