Re: Hello / byte-compilation

[Marcus Daniels <marcus@aristotle.icc.pdx.edu>]

>>>>> "kr" == kr  <kr@shell.portal.com> writes:

kr> But it seems both Emacs and CLISP are byte-compiling. Would it be
kr> difficult to make CLISP generate (and process) Emacs byte-code ? I
kr> do not know how general and powerful each of these systems is, but
kr> it would make a lot of sense to have only one common standard, to
kr> enable easier code-sharing.  Also, isn't the Emacs byte-code
kr> portable across platforms ?? It might make a good substitute for
kr> HotJava, as Emacs has probably a much wider distribution. :-)

Look at a .elc file compared to a .fas file.  More differences there
than just the definitions of byte codes!

Seems to me that converting byte-codes is a tiny problem compared to
finding a language-independent way to represent what are inherently
language dependent features.  This is the problem that ANDF addresses.

Newsgroups: comp.compilers,comp.lang.misc,comp.arch
From: ivanov@gr.osf.org (Eric Ivanov)
Subject: ANDF Kit version 2 available from OSF
Keywords: UNCOL, available, tools
Organization: OSF Grenoble Research Institute
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 1995 09:41:12 GMT

DRA and OSF-RI are pleased to announce version 2 of the ANDF Kit program.
It consists of distribution and support for an "ANDF Kit" for people
interested in investigating the ANDF technology. The rest of this article
provides more information about the program, including:

1. An overview on the technology.

2. A description of the ANDF Kit.

3. What is new in the ANDF Kit version 2.

3. How to get information about ANDF.

	-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1. Overview of the technology.

   ANDF has proven to be a very versatile technology.  OSF-RI and DRA,
   as well as other collaborators around the world, have made numerous
   advances through use of ANDF.  Up to now the technology has proven
   to be very useful in the following areas:

    a. For developing and testing portable software (the ANDF
       technology requires conformance to API specifications, so it
       also serves as a good portability checker).

    b. As an open compiler technology (a baseline for developing a
       compiler family).  In particular for new non-interpretive
       languages, portable compilers may find ANDF a preferable
       intermediate language than say C source code.

    c. For software distribution (the original ANDF objective).

    d. As a more formal, and machine manipulable, way of expressing
       the static aspects of APIs.

   We also foresee interesting usages in the following areas:

    e. ANDF as a representation of parallel programs.

    f. As a format to represent and manipulate code in CASE tools.

   DRA and OSF-RI wish to encourage other investigations from the rest
   of the international research community.


2. The ANDF Kit

   The ANDF Kit V2.0 contains a set of installers for the following
   platforms : intel 486/SCO, sparc/Solaris, sparc/SunOS and PA-RISC/
   HP-UX. DRA's C producer is provided in ANDF format (an installer
   must be installed before installation of the C producer).

   The purpose of this kit is to allow those interested in ANDF to
   have a "hands-on" experience with the technology. It is intended to
   serve a number of purposes:

    - To promote further experimentation with ANDF in the research and
      educational community, especially for experimental languages or
      hardware.

    - To help application developers understand how to utilize the
      portability and checking features of the ANDF technology to
      facilitate application porting to a variety of platforms with a
      common API.

    - To help compiler developers understand the inner workings of the
      ANDF technology, in order to determine the effort required to
      adapt an existing compiler implementation to support the ANDF
      "language" as described in the ANDF specification, whether the
      implementation is a language front-end or a code generator.

   This release of the ANDF Kit is completed by a new release
   of the GANDF technology developed by the OSF RI. The GANDF technology
   is a family of ANDF installers which utilize the GCC code generators,
   thus enlarging the base of supported platforms and demonstrating the
   possibility for ANDF to take advantage of existing compiler back-end
   technology. This new GANDF release is compatible with TDF spec
   level 3.0 and supports the following platforms: i486 SCO ODT 3.0,
   DEC Alpha OSF/1 1.3 and 2.0, PA-RISC HP-UX 9.0x, RS/6000 AIX 3.2 and
   SPARC SunOS 4.1.2.


   Due to the proprietary nature of part of this software, an ANDF
   Cooperative Research Agreement must be signed prior to receiving
   the software.  The ANDF Cooperative Research Agreement is available
   electronically via the Web or from the OSF RI anonymous FTP server
   at:

	ftp://riftp.osf.org/pub/andf/ANDF.CooperativeResAgreement.ps

   Send completed agreements, including the questions in Appendix B,
   to:

	ANDF License Administrator
	OSF Research Institute
	11 Cambridge Center
	Cambridge, MA 02142
	U.S.A.

   Pricing for the ANDF research Kit is based on organization type.
   The kit is for non-commercial use only.  Fees are principally to
   offset the cost of preparation and distribution of the kit
   materials, plus the administration of the ANDF Cooperative Research
   Agreements.

   Pricing is as follows:

	OSF Members:  $ 500.00
	Non-Members:  $1000.00
	Universities: $ 200.00

   A freely distributable subset of the ANDF Kit (Driver, Linker, and
   GANDF installers) is also available via anonymous FTP in the
   directory:

	ftp://riftp.osf.org/pub/andf/ANDF.kit

   No DRA licensed code is included in this subset, so no Cooperative
   Research Agreement with DRA is required.  This subset allows users to
   experiment with installing applications distributed in ANDF, such
   as Mosaic, which will also be available via anonymous FTP.  Other
   applications may be posted from time to time.  Their availability
   will be announced in the ANDF home page.


3. What is new about the ANDF Kit version 2

   The version 2 of the ANDF Kit is based on the latest release by DRA
   named TDF-95-06-12. The differences with version 1 of the Kit are:

   - The MIPS installer has been replaced with an installer for the
     PA-RISC installer. This does not mean that support for the MIPS
     architecture has been discontinued by DRA, but that we believe
     that a PA-RISC installer is of more interest for the research
     community. Other installers are available directly from DRA for
     DEC Alpha, RS/6000, SGI MIPS and MIPS Ultrix and Intel on Unixware,
     Linux and Solaris.

   - All the installers delivered in this Kit pass OSF's AVS (ANDF
     Validation Suite) successfully, bringing the ANDF technology to
     level of quality never attained before.

4. How to get ANDF Information and Documentation

   There is now an ANDF home page located on the OSF RI World Wide Web
   server at URL:

	http://riwww.osf.org:8001/andf/index.html

   Here you will find a brief overview of ANDF, additional information
   about OSF experience with ANDF, as well as pointers to a collection
   of ANDF-related papers which may be either viewed on-line or printed.
   All of the papers from the "ANDF Technology Collected Papers" series,
   currently four volumes, are contained on the server.

   For those who are not Mosaic users, the ANDF papers may also be
   obtained from the OSF RI anonymous FTP server:

	ftp://riftp.osf.org/pub/andf_coll_papers

   Requests for ANDF information may be sent to andf-tech-request@osf.org.


--
eric ivanov@gr.osf.org          Open Software Foundation Research Institute
tel +33 76634896                2 avenue de Vignate
fax +33 76510532                38610 Gieres FRANCE

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