From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Clinton Ebadi Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.user Subject: Re: guile history: your input needed! Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:17:55 -0500 Message-ID: <87ljv9c470.fsf@unknownlamer.org> References: <49dd78620811201634o5635f191w9de3ce26fc79ec71@mail.gmail.com> <49dd78620811230204m7f03e2afqa3ded5f0cb6b2179@mail.gmail.com> <3ae3aa420811230840x61d4778fh2c2c9d6122eb25b6@mail.gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1227493762 19124 80.91.229.12 (24 Nov 2008 02:29:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:29:22 +0000 (UTC) Cc: guile-user To: linasvepstas@gmail.com Original-X-From: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Nov 24 03:30:25 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-user@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1L4RDT-000595-Nu for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:30:23 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:53550 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1L4RCK-00047W-Af for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:29:12 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1L4RCF-00046f-RW for guile-user@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:29:07 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1L4RCD-00043g-D3 for guile-user@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:29:06 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=39729 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1L4RCD-00041d-6W for guile-user@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:29:05 -0500 Original-Received: from deleuze.hcoop.net ([69.90.123.67]:56077) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1L4Q5X-0005MY-Hg for guile-user@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:18:08 -0500 Original-Received: from cpe-024-211-230-216.nc.res.rr.com ([24.211.230.216] helo=rvannith) by deleuze.hcoop.net with esmtpsa (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1L4Q5S-0008Gt-Li; Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:18:02 -0500 In-Reply-To: <3ae3aa420811230840x61d4778fh2c2c9d6122eb25b6@mail.gmail.com> (Linas Vepstas's message of "Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:40:59 -0600") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 1) X-BeenThere: guile-user@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General Guile related discussions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.user:6973 Archived-At: "Linas Vepstas" writes: > Hi, > > 2008/11/23 Neil Jerram : >> If we had a clearer statement of >> the present, it would not matter so much how people describe the past. > > Is there a clear expression of a vision for the future? > What might one look forward to? What needs to be > done? In the near future it looks like the task list is something like: * Merge the guile-vm branch into trunk * Ditch the Guile GC for BDW-GC (maybe; the lower latencies and parallel collector give it a clear advantage of the Guile GC IMO) * Unicode string support (perhaps for the first post stable-guile-vm release). * CFFIesque runtime loading of foreign functions A 2.0 release with at least guile-vm would be nice (perhaps six months or so from now?); the C API has stabilized nicely over the last few years, and so it is now much easier to write extensions that won't bitrot--it is not so difficult to write something that will work with 1.6->git-head (there used to be a lot more libraries for Guile; most of them were written in the 1.3/4 days and are severely incompatible with modern Guile). After guile-vm is mainline it would be nice if Guile really became the GNU Ubiquitous Intelligent Language for Extension. Finding GNU programs that could use an extension language and embedding Guile, replacing existing application specific scripting languages with FOO->Guile translators, and binding useful GNU libraries should be done to as many GNU projects as possible. In the long long term the guile-vm compiler framework could be used to translate other languages into Scheme (or GHIL/GLIL/vm-bytecode) fufilling one of the original goals of Guile (embed Guile in your application and now end users can use whatever language they please to write extensions--with some interoperability between them). A good early language to write a translator for would be ECMAScript; no one expects consistency between embedded ES systems and the standard library is small enough to implement quickly in Scheme. In the u256_t term replacing the Emacs interpreter with Guile and an elisp->{scheme/GHIL/GLIL/...} translator. -- How can you accept social supression This weak state of mind in our time I demand release from hypocrisy I'd rather die than be held down, forced down