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RE: [Axiom-developer] Re: noweb / Lisp Skills


From: Page, Bill
Subject: RE: [Axiom-developer] Re: noweb / Lisp Skills
Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 11:46:07 -0400

On Thursday, May 04, 2006 10:47 AM Martin Rubey wrote:
> ... 
> Things to do on the interpreter side needed for the 
> axiom-combinat project:
> 
> * make it understand Aldor:
> 
>   * dependent types
>   * extend
>   * creating domains on the command line
>

Is what you are suggesting the same thing as making library
programming possible at the level of the interpreter? If
so, they I supose that you realize that this is already an
issue at the level of SPAD and is not really an Aldor
specific problem. It seems to me that the differences
between the interpreter and library compiler environments
were largely built-in as part of the original design of
Axiom. I think the designers decided that the interpreter
*should* behave differently than the compiler and that
some of the things the compiler does should specifically
not be available to the interactive user.

It is certainly possible right now to use dependent types
and the Aldor 'extend' functionality in Axiom right now
so long as you remain within the Aldor library code. The
problem is that neither of these can currently be "exposed"
the the interactive user through the Axiom interpreter.
I think however that these two cases a rather different.
I think it should be possible to implement dependent types
in the interpreter and the fact that it doesn't currently
work is apparently already considers a bug by Peter Broadbery.
But the the 'extend' functionality is another issue because
that whould require providing the equivalent of the library
compiler at the interpreter level.

Aldor has the ability to run a "read-eval-print-loop" (the
-gloop option) which provides a limited kind of direct
interaction with the compiler. This is not possible with
SPAd and it is not currently possible to access Aldor in
this way through the Axiom interpreter - but maybe it should
be possible?
 
> * separate the mathematical knowledge about the domains
>   from the interpreter, possibly incorporate ideas of
>   Nic Doye
> 

I think this is good idea but perhaps best accomplished
by re-implementing the Axiom interpreter as something
linke B# rather than retro-fitting the existing code.

Regards,
Bill Page.




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