Re: [9fans] New language?

[Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>]

On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 09:33:55AM +0200, Fco.J.Ballesteros wrote:
> 
> > More seriously, I'm happy to work further on Alef, but I have long
> > ago accepted Bell Labs' view that maintaing the libraries is a
> > disaster.
> 
> Is there any way to generate them automatically or to permit
> Alef to bind to C ones somehow? Does it use different conventions
> in the object files?
> 
I assume that Bell Labs have looked at this, although not all their
decisions have been entirely flawless.

As I read it, it's a bitch because the procedure call interface is
different from "C".  I haven't looked at the internal details, and
I'm less than confident that I would get very far.  If forsyth
chose to get involved (or rog, perhaps) we'd have a strong chance.

But if things settle down, it may well be worth it.  In addition,
Alef is still experimental, it can pick up quite a lot from Limbo,
if the interest exists (I didn't realise how many features of Alef
I had overlooked in my initial study of it - some of them are
probably obsolete, even, others may be extremely useful).

If the interest is there, I'm happy to put some effort towards
keeping Alef alive.  I am not sufficiently up to date, in an academic
sense, to drive language-based changes, though.

++L