Re: vm status update, a.k.a. yowsers batman it's february already

[Neil Jerram <neil@ossau.uklinux.net>]

Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> writes:

>  * Just as we have a tower compilers (and thus languages), we now have a
>    tower of /decompilers/. Currently I've only implemented
>    value->objcode (only valid for values of type program or objcode),
>    objcode->bytecode, and bytecode->assembly, but it's possible to
>    implement passes decompiling all the way back to Scheme.
>
>    Or JavaScript! That's the crazy thing: since multiple languages exist
>    on top of one substrate, decompilers allow us to do language
>    translation -- what Guile originally wanted to do, but as artifact
>    rather than as mechanism.

That does sound interesting.  But it sounds more like something
educational to me, rather than a solution to the original translation
desire.  For example, it would allow us to show people the equivalent
of a given Scheme program in their own preferred language - which
would ultimately be helpful for teaching people Scheme.  And by adding
more sophisticated decompilation passes it might allow us to
demonstrate how a given program can be written (through provable
transformations) in several different ways, and consider which ways
are conventionally considered to be more elegant.

But is that the kind of thing that you had in mind, or have I missed
your point?

Regards,
        Neil