From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Bruce Korb Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: memoization and conditional defines Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 11:08:24 -0800 Sender: guile-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: <3DCABA28.3421DA63@pacbell.net> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1036699096 8477 80.91.224.249 (7 Nov 2002 19:58:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 19:58:16 +0000 (UTC) Cc: guile-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 189sn8-0002CZ-00 for ; Thu, 07 Nov 2002 20:58:14 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 189sDX-00071y-00; Thu, 07 Nov 2002 14:21:27 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 189s12-0003sR-00 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 07 Nov 2002 14:08:32 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 189s10-0003pm-00 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 07 Nov 2002 14:08:31 -0500 Original-Received: from bay-bridge.veritas.com ([143.127.3.10] helo=mtvmime01.veritas.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 189s0z-0003nv-00 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 07 Nov 2002 14:08:29 -0500 Original-Received: from megami (unverified) by mtvmime01.veritas.com (Content Technologies SMTPRS 4.2.10) with SMTP id ; Thu, 7 Nov 2002 11:09:06 -0800 Original-Received: from pacbell.net(ellen.veritas.com[10.180.88.137]) (2152 bytes) by megami via sendmail with P:esmtp/R:smart_host/T:smtp (sender: ) id for ; Thu, 7 Nov 2002 11:08:27 -0800 (PST) (Smail-3.2.0.101 1997-Dec-17 #15 built 2001-Aug-30) X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.8 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en Original-To: Dirk Herrmann Errors-To: guile-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:1658 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.guile.devel:1658 Dirk Herrmann wrote: > > Hi folks, > > I would again like to put your focus on the question, whether we should > support top level forms like the following: > > (if (define foo bar)) > > In the course of a former conversation on this list there was a consensus > that such commands should be supported. However, I have now a better > understanding why allowing such a thing is problematic, .... > As an introduction, I would give an example of how memoization works, at > least in principle. I don't care how memoization works. I understand there are optimization issues. Optimizing isn't important to me, or I would not use an interpretive language as my "extension language". If you add a disabling mechanism, then you'll have the best of all worlds. You can memoize/optimize to your heart's content, and I'll disable it for my purposes. If that is not practical and Guile becomes, essentially, an semi-compiled language with constraints on where defines may happen, then my goose will be cooked. BTW, my guess is that memoizing Guile will make it go much slower. Generally, I just pass Guile a few bytes to process (mostly less than 40), handle the result and go on. In fact, the most common expressions are: (set! foo (....)) and (. foo). *Sometimes*, however, I have some complex stuff that queries the environment to determine what is going on and from that has to define various different things. It's that "sometimes" that hurts. _______________________________________________ Guile-devel mailing list Guile-devel@gnu.org http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-devel