Re: After GOOPS integration: Computation with native types!

[Keisuke Nishida <kxn30 at po dot cwru dot edu>]

Mikael Djurfeldt <mdj@mdj.nada.kth.se> writes:

> GOOPS is prepared for a fairly advanced type of optimization, the main
> feature of which is to eliminate most type dispatches.
> 
> The method compiler in GOOPS has the advantage that it *knows* the
> types of the method arguments.  The "observers" of Jost's environment
> implementation, which Dirk is currently merging into Guile, allow us
> to safely replace many generic function invocations with method
> invocations, and we may even break closure borders and do some
> inlining.
> 
> An example of the effect this has on method code is that most type
> dispatches in GOOPS object slot accessors can be removed from the
> method code.
> 
> Now, with Keisuke's VM, things start to get *really* exciting.  It
> will be possible to install a method compiler which compiles to byte
> codes.  And since we're fairly free to introduce new byte code
> instructions, we can do the following:
(snip)

This is like something I have had in my mind.  Is it possible for
a byte compiler to remove run-time type despatches?  My compiler
has a facility of producing byte codes according to the type of
variables (if it is known), so I guess methods can be determined
at compile time.

Do I need to include some special feature in my VM?  Hmm, but maybe
I shouldn't do that now...