Re: [Axiom-developer] Terms of Surrender (was: BAD tim)

[root]

> Since when does any high level language "add functionality"?
> You should not expect it too. Fortran does not add functionality
> to Assembler language. If anything it specifically removes
> functionality, trading-off extreme flexibility for a more
> congenial model of computation. No one could argue that the
> development of high level programming languages was some kind
> of mistake.

boot subtracts functionality and forces me to code things that 
i know generate code which is a waste of time. do this:

cd int/interp
fgrep MAKESTRING *

see all those calls to MAKESTRING? lets investigate. each call looks like:

     (MAKESTRING "a string")

so we look up the definition of MAKESTRING in src/interp/vmlisp.lisp:

     (defmacro MAKESTRING (a b) a)

thus

     (MAKESTRING "a string") ==> "a string"

so boot generates MAKESTRING into lisp and lisp expands the macro to 
remove it. pointless.

we need to modify the boot compiler to rewrite these string expressions.
 
( to do THAT level of rewrite requires a deep understanding 
  of the boot compiler
  ( to achieve THAT level of understanding we need to deeply 
     document how the boot compiler works. 
      ( to do THAT level of documentation we need to review 
         each function in detail. 
        ( to do THAT detailed level of documentation is pointless
          since the boot compiler is marked for destruction))))