Virtual Machines

[Marcus G. Daniels]

>>>>> "AG" == Arthur A Gleckler <arthur@martigny.ai.mit.edu> writes:

KM> So I say drop this whole VM discussion.

AG> Having to recompile your code when switching systems is not the
AG> problem.  The real problem is having to change your program to fit
AG> the new system.  There's no need to build an interpreted VM or a
AG> VM with a JIT compiler for Lisp portability, and the drawback of
AG> using such a system is potentially dramatically reduced
AG> performance.

One feature of Java is the promise of being able to do static,
optimizing compilation ahead of time, and efficiently communicating
and executing the result on a remote JVM.

Today, this disease of needing to modify a program to fit a
slightly-different system is not so difficult to treat.  Whether that
means GNU autoconf, the proliferation of free operating systems like
Linux and BSD, or a portable Lisp system like MIT Scheme or CLISP, the
business of making programs portable is getting easier.

Sorry if I misunderstand, but it seems like you are also saying that
static, optimizing recompiliation isn't sufficiently expensive to
justify moving around virtual object code.  That conclusion isn't
clear to me yet.  Could someone please convince me?