The VM Goals

Rodrigo Ventura nuron@isr1.isr.ist.utl.pt
Mon, 5 May 1997 20:36:07 +0200


>>>>> ""John" == "John Wood" <tenshon@msn.com> writes:

    John> I have one initial question - to what extent is the LispVM
    John> required to be specific to the Lisp language?  I feel that
    John> if we want to produce a "virtual processor" specification
    John> which is ultimately universal, then we should be looking at
    John> something wider than a model which fits the Lisp
    John> architecture.  I recall Bill House mentioning that Lisp can
    John> ultimately describe the features of all languages, but I
    John> think we should be considering something flexible enough to
    John> fit future language requirements than just past languages.
    John> Comments?

        Hi. The idea is to build a VM for LispOS. And to that extend
it must be specially optimized to handle LISP. It may be a mistake to
build a general VM, since it would be probably more difficult and Lisp
code would run slowly. The idea of LispOS is to make a LISP based
OS. And that's why the VM must be optimized a specialized to LISP as
much as possible.

        Regards,

-- 

*** Rodrigo Martins de Matos Ventura, alias <Yoda>
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