Scheme compilers

[Ian Bicking]

> (Also, I think that the benefits some old LispM folks remember didn't
> have so much to do with the language the OS was implemented in, but
> rather the excellent development environment it was implemented in.
> Some of the same benefits (debuggability, traceability, source
> availability, etc.) could be implemented, at least theoretically, on an
> OS written in assembly.  Thoughts?)

I think this may have come up before, but if not I'd like to mention
Squeak/Smalltalk (http://squeak.cs.uiuc.edu).  Squeak is highly
uni-lingual, and that's part of the philosophy that's gone into it. 
Squeak has the potential for support that's at a low enough level that it
covers most operating system needs.  It's got a development environment
which sounds a lot like Lisp Machines (complete source to everything, code
can be changed mid-process, nice debugging, etc., etc.)  It's all in a
high-level language, and one that isn't ashamed to have stolen a lot of
ideas from Lisp.

People aren't working actively to run it on bare hardware, but that has
been done in the past and there seems to be a desire to keep that option
open.

You also tie into a lot of continuing development.

There's still a lot of filling out to be done to make Squeak a real OS,
but it's a beautiful foundation to work on.

                                              --Ian