>> Thanks for the pointers! I just released Mes 0.5, which is now fully >> self hosting. We would need to investigate. However, if we restrict >> the boostrapping path to either Mes or stage0+Mes, how could this help? > > The idea is to make a sub-C compiler that supports only enough of the C > language required to bootstrap your MES, which I then could hand convert > to assembly and thus solve your lower bootstrapping problem.
Ah, and this is what you would need a separate cpp for? >> Compiling tcc is near the top of my priority list -- just below >> releasing Mes 0.5 (done) and discussing the next step (doing that now). >> So if nothing changes, I'll be working to compile tcc, any help or >> insights to make that easier are much appreciated. > > Use the tests included in tcc, as once you can compile all of them your > compiler should support everything required to compile tcc. Thanks for the pointer, I missed that. I have looked into that yesterday. There are 55 tests and Mes has two obvious reasons why none of them work: we need to supply some headers <stdio.h>, <string.h>, and they are using printf in all tests. I am curious to see how far Mes will get :-) >> Posibly. Christopher Webber mentioned PreScheme to me so I guess he's >> a fan. Mes is currently prototyped in C, if we could move that to >> [Pre]Scheme that would be great! >> >> However, my first priority is to close the bootstrap loop, i.e. get >> either GCC or Guile compiled from what's Mes now. > > Absolutely agreed. And in the mean time, I'll be making tools to help > your bootstrap become ever easier. I'm looking at following the C > evolutionary path and implementing the META II compiler compiler and a > couple similiar tools. It's good to hear my plan makes sense to you (see below). What's the META II compiler compiler? >> The one thing holding me back to attempt glueing your stage-N LISP to >> Mes is performance (and well, being terribly busy working to release Mes >> :-). Currently mescc takes 2h30' to compile itself. Compiling tcc is >> still a lot of work and is 10x as big... >> >> I fear that running mes on stage-N's LISP adds another 2 factors of >> perfomance penalty... > > How about an easier problem? If your mes was written in lisp, why not > write a lisp compiler capable of compiling the lisp and thus solving the > performance problem. Indeed, that would be great! Writing mes.c in Scheme fairly easy of course; I've done almost that a couple of times already. Being able to compile [some] Scheme to native code would be very nice in itself too, not just for bootstrapping. > As once an interpreter is made, you are already 30% done writing a > working compiler. I was hoping for that, I still need some inspiration here. >> It seems you're asking all the right questions...THANK! However, >> although this full source bootstrapping endeavor has been a lot of fun >> until now, one of the biggest difficulties has been to reduce the number >> of open questions...almost anything seems possible. So I was hoping to >> get more answers and all I get is more questions ;-) > > How is this for some answers. Yes, thanks a lot! When I started Mes it looked like an almost impossible task and what needs to be done can still look daunting. Questions are great, but some balancing with answers is very helpful. > We are not smarter than all of the great minds of computer science that > have used teams of hundreds to create the foundation of tools upon which > we now stand. > > But we have something they didn't... The answers of what worked well. Yes, I see. That's the knowledge that must somehow regain. It's probably a good thing that not everything works well :-) > From that I assert that the correct course of action for us is the > following: > Build simple, easy and fun tools that simplify the task of solving the > problem. Check! > Your lisp interpreter, actually is closer to becoming a lisp compiler > than mine is. Should that interest you, it would solve your performance > problems. Hmm...It would make sense to write this lisp compiler in lisp, of course. No need to write it in C. Hmm. I wonder if someone would want to help transforming the mes.c interpreter into a mes.scm compiler? > Thank you as always, Greetings, janneke -- Jan Nieuwenhuizen <jann...@gnu.org> | GNU LilyPond http://lilypond.org Freelance IT http://JoyofSource.com | Avatar® http://AvatarAcademy.nl
