Walter did yo realy go Ohhhh?

[Jan Claeys]

Op Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:40:33 -0700, schreef Walter Bright:

> Steve also says in his blog that the advantage of VMs is language
> interoperability. I don't agree, since all you need for interoperability
> is an ABI. For compiled languages, the C ABI serves just fine, and as
> long as each language has a way to get at the C ABI, you have language
> interoperability.

The C ABI isn't really useful if you want (standardised) interoperability 
on an OO level.

That's where an OO machine design (be it a VM or a physical machine 
design--I don't care, and I don't see the difference for language 
designers) can be useful.

E.g., I've been wondering for some time what a hardware design like 
Linn's Rekursiv[*] could have meant to computer languages if it wouldn't 
have been killed because of various reasons (mostly financial...).


[*] <http://www.cpushack.net/CPU/cpu7.html>

-- 
JanC