HLVM -- the High-Level Virtual Machine • Hacker News Board

Re: HLVM -- the High-Level Virtual Machine

#31

Post by riffraff » Tue, Feb 16, 2010, 11:50 PM UTC

megaman821 wrote: post #21

akeefer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The JVM is a great platform if the language in question is relatively close to Java, and you're just layering on higher-level syntax like closures. (Sure, it would be nice if Java supported them, but they're not hard to implement as anonymous inner classes, and to simulate real closing over variables you just need to wrap all captured variables in one-element arrays or other wrapper objects at the declaration side. I…

Maybe it is because the strategy more closely resembles the relationship between the CLR and DLR than the JVM and nothing. Like you said the JVM is not dynamic language friendly, and Sun/Oracle has really shown much interest in making it so.

(I am having a bit of an issue parsing the last sentence but I guess it was "hasn't")

Isn't the DaVinci/MLVM project an example of how Sun actually tried to move towards dynamic and non-java languages in the JVM? invokedynamic & method handles are already in the upcoming java 7, and that goes a long way towards supporting dynamic languages on the JVM.

Re: HLVM -- the High-Level Virtual Machine

#32

Post by megaman821 » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 2:13 AM UTC

riffraff wrote: post #31

megaman821 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is because the strategy more closely resembles the relationship between the CLR and DLR than the JVM and nothing. Like you said the JVM is not dynamic language friendly, and Sun/Oracle has really shown much interest in making it so.

(I am having a bit of an issue parsing the last sentence but I guess it was "hasn't") Isn't the DaVinci/MLVM project an example of how Sun actually tried to move towards dynamic and non-java languages in the JVM? invokedynamic & method handles are already in the upcoming java 7, and that goes a long way towards supporting dynamic languages on the JVM.

Yes, I meant hasn't. Sorry for not proof reading.

Re: HLVM -- the High-Level Virtual Machine

#33

Post by megaman821 » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 2:15 AM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #23

megaman821 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of like Java in general, the JVM sits in the middle ground. LLVM is a good starting point for building low level languages (although nothing prevents you from writing high level languages in it, you just have write more). The HLVM is supposed to be a good starting point for building high level languages with things like garbage collection, closures, tail call elimination, etc. The JVM isn't the fastest for low l…

The great advantage of the JVM is it has tons of libraries. This means that any competitor such as HLVM will have to fight very hard to gain traction.

That is part of the allure of being built based on LLVM. Recompile some C and C++ libraries using the gcc or clang front-end to LLVM and now HLVM has ton of libraries it can access.

Re: HLVM -- the High-Level Virtual Machine

#34

Post by jdh30 » Thu, Mar 18, 2010, 2:10 AM UTC

crux_ wrote: post #29

45g wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HLVM implementation is for everyone to see at http://hlvm.forge.ocamlcore.org/ . There is a public mailing list at https://lists.forge.ocamlcore.org/pipermail/hlvm-list/ and I am sure Jon Harrop would be more than happy to discuss all technical details there. Mono OTOH might be okayish for C#, but for instance F# so far has no open source implementation. Also Mono is lacking w.r.t. TCO and GC, so its not even clo…

Yes, it's 'open' -- not arguing that, nor would I dispute that Mono is far from perfect. [1] But, like so many FF projects: is this the cart, or the horse? In other words, this feels more like a promotional project for the consulting firm and its pay products than it does a 'real' project. I freely admit this judgement has some external bias; Jon H. has a reputation. [1] footnote: (Of course, neither is the linked pr…

I'm Jon Harrop. HLVM is a hobby project that I work on when I can find the time. If I could commercialize it then I would but there is no short-term way to make decent money from a VM/language that I can see.

I suggest you think carefully about when HLVM's fat references are a disadvantage compared to the alternatives and why. The real reasons are not at all what you're thinking (or what I thought for a long time).