[r6rs-discuss] Re: Interpreters need not apply?

From: William D Clinger <will>
Date: Sun Feb 25 22:21:33 2007

I'm still not speaking for the editors, and haven't
checked lately to see whether they're still speaking
to me...

Aubrey Jaffer quoting me:
> | The language described by the draft R6RS cannot be
> | implemented by a pure interpreter (*). Lexical checking,
> | macro expansion, syntax checking, bound-variable checking,
> | and immutability checks are required before any part of a
> | program can begin its execution.
>
> If what you write is true, then SCM will stay at R5RS. To be sure I
> understand, can the language described by R4RS and R5RS be implemented
> by a "pure interpreter"?

Yes. (To acknowledge John Cowan's point, the
languages described by R4RS and R5RS can be
implemented by a form-at-a-time pure interpreter.
The language described by the draft R6RS cannot.)

Will
Received on Sun Feb 25 2007 - 22:21:30 UTC