Re: .NET CLR? was no subject

[Jay Sulzberger <address@hidden>]

On Wed, 6 Mar 2002, Michael Vanier wrote:

>
> > Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 11:10:39 -0500
> > From: Ken Anderson <kanderson@bbn.com>
> >
> > T1:  Multilanguage support through the Common Language Runtime (CLR).
> > This paper:
> > http://research.microsoft.com/~emeijer/Papers/MondrianDDJ.pdf about the
> > functional language Mondrian shows a nice example where a C# program
> > invokes an iterator which is really a Mondrian infinite list.  So, i can
> > imagine using Mondrian to do parsing for a C# program - Cool!
> >
> > However, http://www.javalobby.org/clr.html suggests that a language, say L,
> > becomes L#, a hybrid langauge, with C# warts or performance
> > limitations.  The article even quotes David Simmons about Smallscript.
> >
>
> Eric Kidd mentioned the case of Eiffel.  My understanding is that even
> though the Eiffel people managed to create a .NET version of Eiffel with MI
> and DBC, they had to go through some pretty major hoops to do so.  It
> appears that the "common type system" really means "common type system for
> a language sufficiently similar to C#".  Jesse Liberty, in his "Programming
> C#" book, states that he'd rather have his teeth drilled than program in
> managed C++ (I think that's a quote).  That's presumably because managed
> C++ removes a lot of the features of C++ like MI.
>
> >
> > So the questions are:  Is CLR a good thing from a language implementation
> > point of view, ie, are you better off than implementing a language in Java,
> > say?  From a programmers point of view, does programming in multiple
> > languages with a common runtime help?  Would you program in multiple languages?
> >
>
> I would absolutely program in multiple languages if it was feasible,
> sufficiently transparent and efficient.  I think that .NET is a first
> tentative step in the right direction, but it hasn't solved the problem by
> any stretch of the imagination.  When I can write low-level code that needs
> to be maximally efficient in C++, routine infrastructure code in a java or
> ML dialect, and script the system in python or scheme, and all without
> paying a huge runtime cost, I'll be one happy programmer.  I don't see this
> happening for some time yet.
>
> Mike

The Lisp OS will return!

oo--JS.