Re: So, what the heck is a continuation anyway?

[address@hidden (Jeremy Hylton)]

>>>>> "SC" == Simon Cozens <simon@simon-cozens.org> writes:

  SC> The original question was "Why don't you compile Perl to Scheme
  SC> and use a Scheme VM?", and I replied that it was non-trivial to
  SC> compile Perl to Scheme.

If it's non-trivial to compile Perl to Parrot, then one might fairly
ask whether it's better to re-use an existing backend or create a new
one.  I think it would be relatively easy to compile Python to Scheme,
provide the right run-time environment was also written in Scheme.

My sense of Parrot is that it pushes a fair amount of hard work back
to the compiler.  

Perhaps it's worth asking the question another way:  How hard is it to
write a compiler for Perl?  What are the major sources of complexity
in the Perl5 compiler?  Do you think they'll disappear with Perl6?

Jeremy