RE: [Axiom-developer] B#

[Page, Bill]

Gaby, 

On Friday, March 24, 2006 9:49 AM you wrote:
> 
> Bill Page writes:
> ...
> | Have you read the actual B# paper? There is no "hand
> | waving". The user interacts with only one type - the
> | UserType. The UserType in turn has a well-defined
> | relationship to the underlying types defined in the
> | Axiom library.
> 
> By now, I have some familiarity with the B# paper.  I do
> believe there is a "hand waving" concerning how the B#
> interpreter works with types.  The subsection "Types" in
> §5.3 does not say much.

Can you give a couple of specific examples of the kind of
design issues where you think the authors are being too
vague and the problems might be difficult to solve?

> I also read the paper 
> 
>    "The Type Inference and Coercion Facilities in the
>    Scracthpad II Interpreter" by the duo Sutor & Jenks.
> 
> The description there is informal, sufficient to convey the
> general feeling of how the type system works.  However,
> it lacks the "essence" that would make it acceptable to a
> compiler writer, or even at a contemporary programming
> language conferences :-)

Did I just see you gesture wildly with your hands? ;)

> I suspect the meat must be the papers refered to as [1] [3]
> [4], [5], [7] [8].  I currently have access to none of them,
> except [1].

Please let me know if you manage to get copies of some of
these. I am trying hard to pull together a complete reference
library of Axiom design papers and publications on the Axiom
Portal.

Thanks.

Bill Page.