[Aldor-l] Using Aldor or SPAD

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

Martin Rubey <martin.rubey at univie.ac.at> writes:

| Dear Gabriel, Ralf, Christian, Bill, ...
| 
| Gabriel Dos Reis <gdr at integrable-solutions.net> writes:
| 
| > | Gaby, have you any idea how long it could take to produce another
| > | reasonably efficient Aldor compiler?
| > 
| > It all depends on what you want to have in the "reasonably efficient"
| > compiler. It should be a mater of days or weeks to have a good front-end. It
| > would take momths to have decent optimizations in.  but, that is definitely
| > in our reach.
| 
| What implementation language would you propose? Is the legal

this usually turns to be a language war so I would like first to have
us agree on what we want to have, then seek the means.

| situation affected by the choice of the implementation language?
| Gaby, did your students see the source code of the aldor compiler?

No, and I never saw it.  The only thing I know of the Aldor compiler
is that long time ago my "intern-mate" Yannis was working on it at
Sophia Antipolis...

| I think we should not wait any longer. I'm currently interested in two
| projects:
| 
| * species, together with Ralf and Nicolas
| 
| * symmetric functions
| 
| Both of these projects depend *heavily* on types being first class
| objects, and on allowing dependent types. Both of these features are
| missing in SPAD. 

Indeed.  You have mentioned dependent types many times.  I would like
to know more about what you mean.  For example, if we go full
dependent types, I suspect it would be very difficult to evaluate
all categories at compile-time.  So, I'm interested in the kind of
dependency you want.
[ For example, C++ has dependent types at its "template systems" but
  values are limited to integers and addresses of toplevel entities ]

| In fact, there are two things missing in Axiom:
| 
| 1) a replacement for SPAD that allows one to use the Aldor language

Can anyone familiar with integrating SPAD with foreign languages
educate me about the thorny issues?

| 2) a replacement for the interpreter, that allows one to use the Aldor language
| 
| I wouldn't be surprised if 2) would be easier to achieve, but I don't
| know. Gaby, how much money do you need for 1), for 2) and for both?

At the moment, I would have assess students' needs before.  Let's talk about
this aspect latter.

Thanks for your support!

-- Gaby