From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Barry Margolin Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: What's the spec for emacs lisp virtual machine ? Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:57:31 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: <87d3ueiokq.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <1de2313f-2646-437e-9305-a5e7a8bb22f9@k39g2000yqb.googlegroups.com> <777141d9-4f52-45bb-97d1-df33ca9af88a@c10g2000yqi.googlegroups.com> <61a26ed5-80eb-4175-b7c4-162a1ce21a59@e5g2000yqn.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291855665 27812 80.91.229.12 (9 Dec 2010 00:47:45 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 00:47:45 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Dec 09 01:47:41 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PQUfa-00046G-9T for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 01:47:38 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:46260 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQUfZ-0007DJ-NI for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 19:47:37 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.glorb.com!news2.glorb.com!feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.lang.lisp Original-Lines: 22 Injection-Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:57:31 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: barmar.motzarella.org; posting-host="+bxBiZT/p0ZLLuDb5H+JCw"; logging-data="1895"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+SOZ2zzEEw3t6tSq7zmxV3" User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.3b3 (Intel Mac OS X) Cancel-Lock: sha1:6+w2/XFwYwklkgcVB88UDmccdjo= Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:179992 comp.lang.lisp:290578 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:76322 Archived-At: In article <61a26ed5-80eb-4175-b7c4-162a1ce21a59@e5g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, Fren Zeee wrote: > portability does not require VM, it only requires C while emacs > interprets the lisp code. a diff command in C is portable over > computers because its written in C. not because of a VM. An interpreter *is* a VM. The "machine language" of this VM is the language being interpreted. Maybe what you're really asking is whether we need byte code? That's just an optimization. Compiling to machine code is even more of an optimization, but then the result is not portable. So a byte code VM is a compromise between source code interpretation and machine code compilation. -- Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** *** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***