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Re: Beyond Java?



At 11:16 AM +0000 3/17/01, Jason Trenouth wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Scott McKay <swm@mediaone.net>
>To: Maxim Kizub <M.Kizub@post.skynet.lt>
>Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 5:03 PM
>Subject: Re: Beyond Java?
> >
> > Dylan has a per-library compilation model -- you compile the
> > whole library at once.  This means that intra-library optimizations
> > can be done very aggressively in the scope of the language.
> > This turns out not to be true in Java -- its per-class compilation
> > model means that it has to be less aggressive about optimization
> > even within a notional library.  So Dylan can beat out Java here.

There was a new option added in JDK 1.2 (I think) that says something along
the line of "everything in package X comes from this .jar file".  It turns
out that this gives license for many of the same kinds of intra-library
optimizations.  There is a good paper in OOPSLA'00 proceedings discussing
this feature and some of its implications.  The authors mention Dylan's
sealing in their introduction, though from their discussion I think maybe
they didn't quite get all of its implications.  Sorry I'm a bit fuzzy on the
details, but my copy of the OOPSLA'00 proceedings is at home right now.
I'll try to remember to look it up when I get home and post a proper citation
tomorrow -- I think the paper had a title that would make it obvious if one
were looking for something on this topic, in case somebody else has a copy of
the proceedings handy.



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