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From: Wilfred Hughes <me@wilfred.me.uk>
To: 24363@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#24363: Clarify the VM docs
Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 01:04:51 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAFXAjY69HSibSrXKOQX0kXsqq3Ozm360=7h2t4i4UanSX3vAQw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)

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The docs currently state:

> The easiest (and most fun) way to depend on a virtual machine is to
implement the virtual machine within Guile itself. This way the virtual
machine provides what Scheme needs (tail calls, multiple values, call/cc)
and can provide optimized inline instructions for Guile (cons, struct-ref,
etc.).

This is a little confusing for new readers (like myself), who may consider
Guile to by synonymous with Scheme.

This led to interpret this as 'the VM is implemented in Scheme', which has
a bootstrapping problem (what actually interprets your bytecode?).

Instead, I propose adding an additional sentence:

> The easiest (and most fun) way to depend on a virtual machine is to
implement the virtual machine within Guile itself. Guile contains a
bytecode interpreter (written in C) and a Scheme to bytecode compiler
(written in Scheme). This way the virtual machine provides what Scheme
needs (tail calls, multiple values, @code{call/cc}) and can provide
optimized inline instructions for Guile (@code{cons}, @code{struct-ref},
etc.).

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             reply	other threads:[~2016-09-04  5:04 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2016-09-04  5:04 Wilfred Hughes [this message]
     [not found] ` <handler.24363.B.147296552715192.ack@debbugs.gnu.org>
2016-09-04  5:08   ` bug#24363: Acknowledgement (Clarify the VM docs) Wilfred Hughes
2016-09-04 16:14     ` Andy Wingo
2016-09-05  0:23       ` Wilfred Hughes
2016-09-05 18:52         ` Andy Wingo
2017-03-01  9:07           ` Andy Wingo

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