On Wed, Apr 25, 2007 at 03:32:54PM +0000, Herbert Snorrason wrote: > On 25.4.2007, at 15:06, Nicholas Clark wrote: > >So Parrot is the odd one out here, for relying on an external > >language for > >its extended build process. I'm not sure if this is significant. > > Isn't Parrot more comparable to JVM and CLI in this regard, in that > it's a theoretically language-independent VM, while the examples you > mention are very specifically tied to one single language? So it > wouldn't be unexpected that it's the odd out?
Not entirely Perl 5 is really Perl 5/Perl 5, Java is Java/Java, in the sense of C#/.NET The distribution provides both a language and a virtual machine, although that virtual machine is not really accessible apart from via the language of the same name. Java toolchains are written in Java, although I admit that I don't know how early Java is used during the building of a Java VM from source. But I don't see a fundamental reason not to write more of the Parrot build system toolchain in a language that runs atop the Parrot VM, rather than the Perl 5 VM, over the long term. (In the shorter term, the Perl 5 code works, and change for the sake of change itself is make-work, and a distraction from progressing other areas, such as implementing PDDs, and exterminating bugs) Nicholas Clark
