Re: [VM] Tail recursion and multiple values

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Hello!

Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> writes:

> On Mon 02 Mar 2009 00:48, ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

>> As for (1), I'm unsure.  The issue is that as long as running code with
>> the interpreter is the default, people may hit this kind of problem,
>> which is, well, problematic.  Now, I have no idea how this could be
>> solved without resorting to dirty hacks such as the one you suggested.
>
> Yeah. It is certainly a counterintuitive situation. The compiler
> recognizes both call-with-values and @call-with-values, so we could just
> not compile call-with-values; less nasty, but still nasty, and penalizes
> the vm in the (apply call-with-values ...) case.

Yes, but OTOH that's an unusual case, no?

>> As a side note, I think it makes sense to keep the interpreter as the
>> default when evaluating `.scm' files
>
> Sure, for now -- or we could do what python does, and automatically
> create .go files as needed (and if possible). Then it would certainly
> pay off over time, and the compilation time would probably be a wash
> because in that case the .scm probably isn't even in the disk cache.

That's one possibility.  I think I prefer having to compile things
explicitly, though.

>> if the compiler performs smart optimizations,
>
> Hahaahaha!

To put it another way, the compiler may not be designed from the ground
up to minimize compilation time, whereas the interpreter (supposedly)
tries to achieve this.

> More seriously, I think that the bar for including optimizations in the
> normal compilation path will be if they actually speed up the compiler
> as well (since the compiler is self-compiled).

Hey, walking in Dybvig's footsteps?  ;-)

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dyb/pubs/hocs.pdf

Thanks,
Ludo'.