Re: PHP fork project- Guile vs Python vs ?

["Nic Ferrier" <nferrier at tapsellferrier dot co dot uk>]

rms wrote:
>> Scheme is a very powerful language, and a very 
>> good target for translating other languages.  Eventually 
>> the plan is to have a number of translators from various 
>> languages into Scheme.  Then any program which uses 
>> Guile will be able to support all those languages.

rm replied:
>Well, and how? I have read the statements about translating
>other languages to scheme/guile several times now, as a matter
>of fact this is what initially attracted me to guile, but there
>seems to be no documentation whatsoever about how to do this.

Translators for Guile into other languages have not been completed
yet but Scheme was chosen (AFAIK) because it is uniquely capable of
doing this.

For example, Kawa (a GNU Scheme->Java-bytecode compiler) has
translators for EMACS Lisp and for ECMAScript (JavaScript). 

Scheme has an extendable syntax so it is easy to build new constructs
in the language, for non-LISP like languages one then has to simply
define a REPL for the language.

The idea is, that when these translators are complete, you will
program in Guile/Python or Guile/Perl (or whatever) and not notice
that Scheme is actually doing all the work.


Nic Ferrier