[REBOL] Re: Is Rebol code smaller?/Compiler!
From: g:santilli:tiscalinet:it at: 20-Nov-2002 14:47
Hi Tim,
On Tuesday, November 19, 2002, 6:50:21 PM, you wrote:
TJ> Dynamic typing (a word is
TJ> typed when it is assigned a value) is a feature of interpreted languages.
Actually, word in REBOL are not typed at all. The just can
reference any value. The value itself has a type.
You cannot compile REBOL because you don't know anything at
compile time. You don't know if a block is code or data; you don't
know what a word is referencing unless you actually execute the
code.
I.e. if you'll really try to compile any REBOL script, you'll end
up with embedding the interpreter in the resulting code, with
maybe the chance of doing some minor optimizations in a couple
special cases. I don't think it is really worth the effort.
What would be useful to, instead, is offering something like:
f: make native! [...] [
; a compilable REBOL dialect here
]
so that you can write in native code the performance-critical
parts of your scripts.
Regards,
Gabriele.
--
Gabriele Santilli <[g--santilli--tiscalinet--it]> -- REBOL Programmer
Amigan -- AGI L'Aquila -- REB: http://web.tiscali.it/rebol/index.r
