Re: Supercompiled Perl

  Valentin,

  Could you please write a short message to this list explaining what
benefits you see in a Perl supercompiler?  Is it just a speed isue?  Why
do you think Perl is suitable for the type of transformations that you
have studied?  

  Thank you very much!

  -- Jordan

On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, Valentin Turchin wrote:

> Dear Helmut,
> 
> Thanks a lot for your letter.  Writing a supercompiler for PERL is a very good idea.
>  Should anybody embark on it, we in the Refal group will gladly share our experience.
> 
> Best wishes.
> 
> Valentin Turchin
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Helmut Enck-Radana <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
> Cc: Jordan Dimov <[email protected]>; John Porter <[email protected]>; Simon Cozens <[email protected]>
> Date: Saturday, August 04, 2001 02:46 PM
> Subject: Re: Supercompiled Perl
> 
> 
> >John Porter wrote:
> >>Jordan Dimov wrote:
> >>>Turchin has founded a start up (www.supercompilers.com) with the purpose 
> >>>of developing a supercompiler for Java, speeding up Java code by a factor 
> >>>of 100.
> >>
> >>The culture of Java encourages fantastic hyperbole.
> >
> >Simon Cozens wrote:
> >>Jordan Dimov wrote:
> >>>Is anyone here familiar with the concept of supercompilation, as 
> >>>described by prof. Valentin Turchin in [1] for example?
> >>>[...]
> >>>[1] ``The Concept of a Supercompiler'', Valenting F. Turchin, ACM Trans. 
> >>>Program. Lang. Syst. 8, 3 (Jul 1986), pp. 292-325
> >>
> >>I've read this.
> >>[...]
> >>This isn't anything new, since most compilers do this anyway.
> >
> >This must be a misunderstanding. As far as I understand modern 
> >supercompilers are capable of transforming an interpreter into a compiler. 
> >This seems to be just too revolutionary for most people to believe. The 
> >speed-up factor of course depends on the kind of application. More 
> >important is the idea to allow writing programs on a level of abstraction 
> >which was not possible so far. Obviously there must be some hindrances for 
> >the wide-spread use of this technology. Possibly the publicly available 
> >tools only work on some advanced programming languages which aren't 
> >understood by a lot of programmers, and may be they aren't very easy to 
> >apply in ordinary practise.
> >
> >There are quite a few papers about the subject, some of which can be found 
> >here:
> >http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs?q=supercompiler&submit=Search+Documents&am=50
> >http://www.refal.com/english/s_compil.htm (home of supercompilation with 
> >Refal, online examples)
> >http://www.diku.dk/topps/bibliography/bibl-aut.html (search for 
> >/supercompil(er)|(ation)/ yields lots of hits)
> >http://www.diku.dk/users/rambo/publications.html (Master's Thesis with 
> >detailed remarks about history)
> >http://www.dina.dk/~jesper/PEsummerschool/ (educational implementation & 
> >tutorial)
> >http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~jesper/CASE/ (educational implementation, examples)
> >
> >>>Is Perl suitable for this kind of program transformation?
> >>
> >>Of course.
> >
> >Jordan, possibly this wasn't the best mailing list to ask questions about 
> >that subject. You could have more luck when you direct them to the Refal 
> >mailing list:
> >
> >mailto:[email protected]
> >
> >The archive can be browsed here:
> >
> >http://www.botik.ru/mail-archive/refal/
> >
> >(Most messages are in Russian, but questions which are posted in English 
> >are also replied to in English. Also some of the Russian messages are 
> >nearly understandable after applying online-translation. Watch out not to 
> >execute the attachment Microsoft_Word__3_.doc.bat.)
> >
> >-- Helmut
> >
> >(BCCed to Valentin F. Turchin, Andrei V. Klimov, Andrei P. Nemytykh)
> >
> >
> >________________________________
> >
> >Helmut Enck-Radana
> >Paradigma Software GmbH
> >http://www.paradigma-software.de
> >________________________________
> >
> >
>