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Re: CTAX revisited


On Sun, Jul 23, 2000 at 09:01:50PM +0200, Mikael Djurfeldt wrote:
> (BTW, since Java and Scheme
> are semantically similar and since we now have GOOPS, it's possible to
> emulate Java efficiently.  So a Java->Scheme translator is probably
> also a very rewarding project.)

This current project is really only syntactic, so it could form the
basis for a Java, C++, or other C-like language.  Well, I don't know
how successful C++ would be...

The advantage to doing only syntactic translation -- and the reason I
didn't use my tcl->scheme project -- is that it's simple.  Not just to 
write, but also to use.  Documentation that refers to symbols,
classes, or whatever, will apply just as much to the translated
language as to Scheme.  If zero is false in the language, and then
someone passes zero to a procedure that wants a boolean and is written
for Scheme use, they will be most confused to find that Scheme thinks
zero is true.  The translation can trap the `if' statements, but it
cannot trap all the implicit ifs in all the code it touches.

Similarly with implementing the Java object system in GOOPS -- it
would certainly be doable, but it might not fit well with what is
ultimately a Scheme environment that it lives in. 

Now, that's not to say this is impossible.  But it would require some
change in Scheme practices, probably -- an addition of information to
clarify any ambiguities in the translation.

  -- Ian

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