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000137_icon-group-sender _Tue Jun 8 14:13:36 1993.msg
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Received: from owl.CS.Arizona.EDU by cheltenham.CS.Arizona.EDU; Wed, 16 Jun 1993 08:32:05 MST
Received: by owl.cs.arizona.edu; Wed, 16 Jun 1993 08:32:04 MST
Date: 8 Jun 93 14:13:36 GMT
From: mcsun!sun4nl!rulway.LeidenUniv.nl!ruls41.LeidenUniv.nl!ruiter@uunet.uu.net (Jan Peter de Ruiter)
Organization: Leiden University
Subject: compilable subset
Message-Id: <1993Jun8.141336.25196@rulway.LeidenUniv.nl>
Sender: icon-group-request@cs.arizona.edu
To: icon-group@cs.arizona.edu
Status: RO
Errors-To: icon-group-errors@cs.arizona.edu
A lot of Icon features and constructs depend on Icon being
interpreted. These features are very desirable, according
to Icon users, and therefore a certain performance loss is
tolerable.
However, sometimes people like to have a higher performance.
Someone in the Icon group once wrote that there is no "red hot"
Icon compiler in written in Icon. (I think it was Richard Goerwitz)
Being relatively unfamiliar with the tricky details of the
implementation of Icon, my question is this:
*Given* the constraint that The Given Language should be
about as fast as, say, pascal, what Icon features should be
removed/redefined in order to pull the trick. Mind you, I am not
in any way suggesting changes to Icon, I'm just trying to find out
what is the most "Iconish" language possible that can compete in
speed with pascal (or C++, you get the idea...)
As an example, backtracking and garbage collecting are probably (?)
features that The Given Language should not have. However, the absence
of declarations for strings & integers can probably be resolved in
some way.
I'd really like comments from people who are familiar with the
implementation of Icon, and from people who have opinions on what
features of Icon are distinctly "Iconish."
If it turns out to be possible to define a language that is as fast
as pascal, and a lot more convenient (in an Iconish fashion), I'd like
to spend some time trying to implementing it.
If it is not clear what my question entails, please post! I'll then
try to clarify.
Greetings,
Jan
-----------------------------------------------------
Jan de Ruiter
Leiden University
Dept. of Information Science for the Social Sciences
The Netherlands
ruiter@ruls41.leidenuniv.nl