Re: [stack] Advantages of cat, joy ..?

On Feb 22, 2009, at 5:11 PM, Robbert van Dalen wrote:

> for example, for factor to be efficiently compiled to a register
> based architecture, it must leave the stack model. ... if a language
> primitive can be compiled to x84 one-to-one - that language primitive
> is not far away from - say - a pascal primitive.

It never leaves the "stack model". The implementation doesn't always  
shuffle things around on a stack, but that seems immaterial. I think  
it's better to look at the semantics than to assume a language isn't  
that different because it happens to permit efficient compilation.

> so my guess is that collection based languages are the future. and i  
> do hope
> that such collection oriented language is (optionally) strongly typed

You may want to look at these:

    http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~cbj/FISh/Announcement/
    http://www.sac-home.org/

SaC is probably the most advanced language with shape inference, but  
it manages to do it by throwing away parametric polymorphism, ad hoc  
polymorphism, and higher order functions. As such, its use is limited.  
Typing something like J is currently out of the question.

- John