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RE: Mono and Perl6....

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From:
Brent Dax
Date:
February 6, 2002 13:49
Subject:
RE: Mono and Perl6....
Message ID:
FJELLKOPEAGHOOODKEDPKEMODCAA.brentdax@cpan.org
Aaron Sherman:
# Ok, so I read Miguel's message:
#
# http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2002-February/msg
# 00031.html
#
# I drank the cool-aid and now I find myself thinking... should Perl6
# compile down to its own byte-code or to Mono's CIL? Miguel
# feels this is
# the way to go, and if Mono's bytecode is in fact so flexible that many
# languages will be able to communicate through it, then perhaps we're
# shooting ourselves in the feet by NOT targetting Perl6's
# back-end there.
#
# I realize that this has the twin drawbacks of introducing the
# stigma of
# a Microsoft technology into Perl's core and moving away from the
# wonderful work done thus far on Perl6's byte-code. However, if there
# will ever be a time to make this choice, it would seem that now is it.
#
# Some pros:
#
# * If Miguel is able to swing the community, Gnome4 will
# heavily rely on
# Mono. If Perl is Mono-ready, that will make Perl a much more
# attractive
# technology for new Gnome libraries and applications.
# * If Perl6 uses CIL, then there will be a much larger community
# supporting the back-end. Also, there will be a ready-made community of
# people who understand how to integrate Mono-bytecoded
# applications into
# their infrastructures (from Web services to development
# platforms, etc).

From the FAQ referenced in my sig (just s#\.NET#Mono#g):

11. Why your own virtual machine? Why not compile to JVM/.NET?

Those VMs are designed for statically typed languages. That's fine,
since Java, C#, and lots of other languages are statically typed. Perl
isn't. For a variety of reasons, it means that perl would run more
slowly there than on an interpreter geared towards dynamic languages.

12. So you won't run on the JVM/.NET?

Sure we will. They're just not our first target. We build our own
interpreter/VM, then when that's working we start in on the JVM and/or
..NET back ends.

--Brent Dax
brentdax@cpan.org
Parrot Configure pumpking and regex hacker
Check out the Parrot FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~ziggy/parrot.html (no,
it's not mine)

<obra> mmmm. hawt sysadmin chx0rs
<lathos> This is sad. I know of *a* hawt sysamin chx0r.
<obra> I know more than a few.
<lathos> obra: There are two? Are you sure it's not the same one?


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