Re: Issues in ia64

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

   From: "cr88192 sydney" <address@hidden>
   Date: Tue, 02 Jul 2002 21:18:08 +0000

   err?...

for example, getpwent binding (glue code) can be put into a shared
object library and then we can arrange for guile to load that library
automatically on first reference to `getpwent'.  all this is "can"
because no one has actually done it yet.  part of the problem is
settling on methodology to make this particular separation an instance
of the larger task of "supporting modular development".  everything can
be done by hand but that gets old...

   what I had done with it would was using it as a lib, but all the
   "normal" extensions loaded in (ice-9, guile-gtk, ...). didn't work
   and couldn't be loaded without putting them in the current
   directory...

did you load boot-9.scm?  this defines the module system, which is what
searches `%load-path' for those things.

   ok, the real issue is that I don't know guile's workings in detail...

i'm in the same boat (whatever level of detail i know, there's always a
deeper level).

   I have for a while been considering writting a compile system, I had
   written a general spec for the calling convention and how to handle
   precise gc/relocation/swizzling for the stack, if wanted I may be
   able to make the partial spec available. are there any real important
   issues for this?

important issues for compilation are everywhere.  important issues for
your spec are that it be complete, consistent and implementable.  less
clearly important (i.e., may be important to some people but not to you)
is that it interoperate w/ current designs, to aid experimentation.

   in my spec call/cc is accomplished by copying the pages from the
   stack region into a continuation region and setting the real stack
   copy-on-write, is this good?

i don't know enough about the particulars to answer this.

   question: in guile anyways is it possible to supply your own mm and
   to inquire about the structure of objects? is there a spec on the
   structure of objects as well?...

guile implements a mini language for specifying object layout in memory.
see libguile/struct.c `make-struct-layout'.  user-level docs are in the
manual under node `Structures':

 
http://www.glug.org/docbits/guile-doc-out/html/guile-1.7.0/guile_25.html#SEC237 
       
                                               
i don't know what "your own memory management" means, precisely.
certainly guile abstracts malloc and free for its own use internally.

thi