a good volunteer

[Martin Cracauer]

In <Pine.LNX.3.96.980928184514.937A-100000@bolt.sonic.net>, Ray Dillinger wrote: 
> Actually, I've joined the list sometime after it quit being
> active, too.  My "read" from the archive was that things were
> stalled waiting for a real honest-to-goodness LISP compiler that
> compiled things to code just as fast and efficient as if they'd
> been written in C and compiled with GCC. 

Actually, the efficiency of code compiled with CMUCL (and some
commercial Lisps) can't be a reason to postphone work on LispOS. Maybe
if you use CLOS, but who wants that, anyway? :-)
 
People don't start working and don't agree on a direction and
therefore don't start working in a certain direction ...

[...]
> Once that LISP implementation exists, then a LispOS kernel can
> be built.  And once the kernel is built, then utilities and
> facilities and drivers can get made.  

That's part of one direction many people don't agree with.

> I've chosen, quite independently, to work on the compiler.  But,
> and this is a big problem, I'm still new to and struggling
> with the C++ language.  My whole career has been spent hacking 
> in Scheme, other LISP dialects, and in Application-defined
> languages (AI languages that only exist in one shop) and C++ is 
> very difficult for me to figure out what's going on in. At the 
> same time, all the low-level interfaces I'm doing this to get
> access to are defined with C++ API's, so that's the language
> that this thing has to start with.  So it'll take a while....

If you want to work on a Lisp compiler, the CMUCL folks would
certainly welcome your input.
 
Martin