Re: on bootstrapping: first Mes 0.3 released

[Jan Nieuwenhuizen]

Arne Babenhauserheide writes:

>>     Mes aims to create an entirely source-based bootstrapping path.  The
>>     target is to [have GuixSD] boostrap from a minimal, easily inspectable
>>     binary --that should be readable as source-- into something close to
>>     R6RS Scheme.
>
> This is really cool! Thank you for your work!

Good, thanks!

>>     It currently has an interpreter written in C (mes) with Garbage
>>     Collector (Jam Scraper), a library of loadable Scheme modules with
>>     test suite just barely enough to support a simple REPL (repl.mes)
>>     and a proof-of-concept c-compiler (mescc.mes) that produces an elf
>>     from the simplest of C files.
>
> How do you compile the interpreter?

The current interpeter I consider to be a prototype in C; I use gcc.
However, HACKING mentions two ways forward

    ** Move mes.c into hex?
    One idea is to use OrianJ's amazing self-hosting
    [[https://github.com/oriansj/stage0][stage0]] hex assembler and
    minimal bootstrap binaries and rewrite the mes.c core to directly
    bootstrap into Scheme.

    ** Rewrite mes.c and generate hex?
    Another idea (thanks Rutger!) is to rewrite the mes.c core in a
    C/Assembly variant and have mescc produce the simple, annotated
    bootstrap binary.

Possibly you have an even better idea?  I am choosing to explore the
latter first: work on the compiler backend and write the interpreter in
its Assembly/C-like s-expressions.

> Best wishes,

Thanks, Greetings,
Jan

-- 
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden> | GNU LilyPond http://lilypond.org
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