From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 18 13:43:44 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B08E61065730 for ; Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:43:44 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from areilly@bigpond.net.au) Received: from nschwmtas06p.mx.bigpond.com (nschwmtas06p.mx.bigpond.com [61.9.189.152]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E8DDF8FC1F for ; Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:43:43 +0000 (UTC) Received: from nschwotgx03p.mx.bigpond.com ([124.188.161.100]) by nschwmtas06p.mx.bigpond.com with ESMTP id <20100818134341.EHNW26010.nschwmtas06p.mx.bigpond.com@nschwotgx03p.mx.bigpond.com>; Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:43:41 +0000 Received: from johnny.reilly.home ([124.188.161.100]) by nschwotgx03p.mx.bigpond.com with ESMTP id <20100818134341.YFOI16083.nschwotgx03p.mx.bigpond.com@johnny.reilly.home>; Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:43:41 +0000 Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:43:41 +1000 From: Andrew Reilly To: Doug Barton Message-ID: <20100818134341.GA88861@johnny.reilly.home> References: <4C6505A4.9060203@FreeBSD.org> <4C650B75.3020800@FreeBSD.org> <4C651192.9020403@FreeBSD.org> <4C673898.2080609@FreeBSD.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i X-Authentication-Info: Submitted using SMTP AUTH LOGIN at nschwotgx03p.mx.bigpond.com from [124.188.161.100] using ID areilly@bigpond.net.au at Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:43:41 +0000 X-RPD-ScanID: Class unknown; VirusThreatLevel unknown, RefID str=0001.0A090202.4C6BE38D.023D,ss=1,fgs=0 X-SIH-MSG-ID: oxk1F9P4TAD0zmQs0WyzOwJxyArnqyN48Z4QX81loRIGTUDCp8DeQ9rEJvdRsMuxxD9EJhuGNGUjaajlTY3Rs9mK Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, Ivan Voras Subject: Re: Interpreted language(s) in the base X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:43:44 -0000 On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 11:15:55PM -0700, Doug Barton wrote: > got any other suggestions? This is very much a "sorry I asked" question, but is none-the less quite a good one, given the size of the hole to be plugged. I think that a reasonable answer for this sort of thing might be one of the dynamic languages that compiles to C, like (perhaps) one of the schemes (chicken, gambit-C, bigloo, etc). You get the benefit of flexibility and dynamism with good regexp and data structure ability, good performance, and only requiring the build tools available in the base system, as long as you don't want to be the developer: just ship the C code (as well as the source, of course). Unfortunately it seems that quite a lot of people have issues with lisp syntax these days. There are some other compile-to-C languages that might work too. [Aside: I think that the answer to this question might get a *lot* more interesting once we have llvm in the base system (it comes along with clang). There are (and I'm sure will be more) languages that compile down to llvm byte-code without the contortions required in going through C.] Cheers, -- Andrew