Using the Compiler

[Jonathan Rees <Rees at YALE>]

Some of you have complained about the amount of time that TC takes to
start itself up.  This could be reduced if we were ready to devote
another few hundred disk pages to pre-dumped target-machine-specific
versions; I'll look into that.  In the meantime, note that running TC
with no arguments on the command line, OR continuing the TC after it quits
after doing a compilation, will put you in a Maclisp read-eval-print loop;
say
	(COMFILE "FILENAME.TAU")
or whatever, to compile a file.  You incur the startup overhead only
when you start the TC process; you can leave it around all day (unless
you want to help keep swap space available so other people can get work
done...).

The compiler is fairly robust in the sense that you may use it to
compile many files without restarting it.  (This is in contrast with the
Maclisp compiler, which becomes "stale".)  If there are errors and you
want to abort, type control-G and say COMFILE again.  (You can even
compile recursively!)

ADVANCED FEATURES: Only the most devoted T fans need read further: If
you want to see gobs of compilation trace information (like what
transformations the optimizer is performing), do (SETQ *TESTING* T)
before compiling something, and type a ? when it asks you a question.
You can compile procedures without putting them in files by saying
(CL (LAMBDA (...) ...)), or by saying (DEFINE (FOO ...) ...) and
(CL FOO).