[9fans] Re: alef compiler

[Russ Cox <russcox@gmail.com>]

We could probably get the lawyers to okay releasing the Alef code,
but I don't see the good it would do.  The Alef compilers
generate Plan 9 object files, which, as discussed in the
archives, are quite different beasts from standard Unix
object files.  Further, if you really want to coexist on Unix, you
don't want to be in the business of generating your own
object files.  I suppose you could retrofit the Alef compilers
to pipe assembly into as.

Libthread provides almost all the run-time support of Alef.
It would likely not be hard to write a front end that translated
Alef code into C+libthread, but it's even easier just to write
in C to begin with, since all the Alef base has been converted.
The differences between Alef and C+libthread are almost entirely
syntactic.  I miss the syntax when I use channels, but I don't miss
it enough to make it seem worthwhile to maintain a converter.

On my list of ideal changes to my programming environment,
Alef syntax isn't very high.  I'd much rather see better support
for profiling, debugging, garbage collection, and automatically
checking correctness.

I think making Limbo run on Unix is a lot more interesting than
making Alef run on Unix.  If anyone wants to try that, I'd be
happy to provide code and moral support.

Just my opinion.

Russ