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000041_icon-group-sender _Sat Feb 12 14:29:53 1994.msg
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Received: by cheltenham.cs.arizona.edu; Sat, 12 Feb 1994 12:05:04 MST
Date: 12 Feb 94 14:29:53 GMT
From: swampler@noao.edu
Organization: National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson AZ
Subject: Re: wishing for an Icon-like embedded language
Message-Id: <1994Feb12.142953.9522@noao.edu>
References: <CL0x83.BAr@walter.bellcore.com>, <1994Feb12.032054.26100@cs.rit.edu>
Sender: icon-group-request@cs.arizona.edu
To: icon-group@cs.arizona.edu
Status: R
Errors-To: icon-group-errors@cs.arizona.edu
In article <1994Feb12.032054.26100@cs.rit.edu>, nmw1638@cs.rit.edu (Nicolas M Williams) writes:
|> In article <CL0x83.BAr@walter.bellcore.com> norman@flash.bellcore.com (Norman Ramsey) writes:
|> >
|> >that the world of C programs is not ready for an extension language
|> >that requires a garbage collector. Nonetheless, I would love to know
|> >of anyone out there has thought about using Icon as an extension
|> >language, or about how to identify a subset or design an extension
|> >language with the ``flavor'' of Icon.
|>
|> I suspect that given the structure of the language, a garbage
|> collector for Icon could be "automatic", meaning that Icon keeps track
|> of the number of references to each object, and collects them as their
|> reference number drops to zero.
|>
|> Or am I hopelessly wrong on this?
|>
Well, Icon already has automatic GC, though not through reference counts (because
of self-referential structures). Instead Icon finds all useful data and discards
the rest.
One reason why Icon hasn't been embedded is because of the sophisticated syntax -
parsers for Icon tend to be quite large, compared to those for languages with
(I know I'm going to regret this...) simple-minded syntax. Of course, in this
day of bloated programs, maybe no one would notice the increase caused by putting
an Icon parser into an application! (Hmmm, maybe someone should write an 'Icon
Server' that can handle parsing and interpreting from multiple Icon clients...)
--
Steve Wampler
swampler@noao.edu
Gemini Project (under AURA)