Re: bytecode unification for scripting languages

[Michael Vanier <mvanier@bbb.caltech.edu>]

> Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 21:02:59 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk@cs.brown.edu>
> 
> In the end, what's the point here?  Microsoft's .NET is already
> shipping, and they will be releasing a sorta-kinda-open source
> implementation next year.  

"Sorta-kinda-open source" is not the same as open source.  The Mono project
(http://www.go-mono.net), if it happens, might overcome this objection.

> Why not take the CIL/CLR spec and build a really great implementation
> of it instead?  Here's an opportunity where Linux and the Open Source
> movement can completely embarass Microsoft.  Be the first to provide a
> free and openly hackable implementation of it, well before Microsft
> does, and make the Linux version run five times as fast as the Windows
> version.  Now *there* would be something impressive.

Again, the Mono project comes to mind as having exactly this goal.
However, a separate issue is whether the same intermediate language will
work equally well for statically compiled languages like C# and java and
for dynamic languages like most scripting languages and scheme.  For
instance, how hard will it be to implement scheme efficiently on top of
CIL/CLR?  If it's easy, then you're right; there's no reason to needlessly
duplicate functionality.  OTOH I can imagine that a portable bytecode
designed explicitly for highly dynamic languages might be a very different
beast.

> 
> PS: Full disclosure: I just spent 3 days at MS hearing about .NET.
>     But my comments are based not on the fact that I'm easily bought
>     -- perhaps I am -- but rather than the CIL/CLR is, at least on
>     paper, *good*.  The Open Source movement has never led the way in
>     the design of *anything*, anyway, afaik.

Well, PLT scheme is open source, as are perl, python, ruby, squeak, Linux,
the Gimp, Gnome, FreeBSD, etc. etc. and I think there has been a
considerable amount of innovation there.  The free software/open source
"movement" is a very recent phenomenon, and there is no "central command",
so it's a bit hard to compare its success at large design projects with
that of Microsoft.  If we compare Microsoft with the overall OS community,
my impression is that Microsoft has been far less innovative overall.  This
doesn't mean that I dislike C#/.net on paper; like you, I think that
technically it has much to recommend it.  It's the politics that worries
me.

Mike