Re: [Pika-dev] xl, xxl, and mxl

[Tom Lord]

    > From: "Jose A. Ortega Ruiz" <address@hidden>

    > OK. And how do you prove that XL avoids divergent behaviour altogether
    > while retaining the ability of expressing that 99.999 x 99.999 % of
    > all programs? (i'm not doubting it, i'm just curious... provided i've
    > really seen :-)

Proving that xl avoids divergent behavior will be simple.

Proving that it will eventually achieve 99.999% coverage --- that's an
empirical thing.

    > I had got a totally wrong understanding of what xl is. I lose track of
    > the furth/xl thread on gnuarch ml at some point which left me
    > (with the false) impression that XL was just a configuration
    > (language for GNU
    > Arch based on furth (as an aside, Tom, i'd appreciate a quick note on
    > how pika fits in the picture (if it fits at all)).

Please forgive me for evading the pika-relation question a little
while longer.  I currently believe (with a fair amount of confidence)
that it relates in a simple way (xl as implementation language for
much of the parts of pika not written yet, *perhaps* as retroactive
re-implementation language for some parts that are written already).

But I'm not prepared quite yet to articulate that correctly and with
confidence.   A little more thinking time, please.


(There are lots of other relations between the two besides just that.   
That's part of why I'm asking for time here.   It's all a (really good
looking but still messy) jumble, for the moment.)

    > >     > in short, i want _abstraction_. and Make users need it, too. 

    > > Make keeps getting pushed in that direction.   It's only compatability
    > > with legacy foo that keeps it from pushing more agressively.

    > Just curious again: is package-framework your attempt to push on that
    > direction or do you have other plans for a building tool?

package-framework is me saying "Ok, I know I need better programming
tools to do a package framework well.   But those will cost way too
much for me to write, just now.   Can I usefully approximate what I
know is right in a lightweight and easily replaced way?"

Answer so far: "Yes, I can.   Here is package-framework.  Based on the
amusingly handy but quirky GNU Make."

I don't know how much further I want to push the approximation,
though.   Not much, I think.

-t