Who is compiling Eu, and why?
- Posted by katsmeow Jan 27, 2015
- 2609 views
I have been using Eu for some time, and never compiled it. I have run it interpreted and bound. So a couple of us were sitting around on irc, and i volunteered to ask publicly: why would anyone compile their Euphoria source code? If the goal is to distribute one file for an application, why compile vs binding?
What drew me to Eu was it being an interpreter. Interpreters can be made very smart, very fault tolerant, and it's easier to add interesting features to interpreters than to compilers. Today's multicore computers, or my 15-year-old single-core computers, run interpreted or bound apps plenty fast enough.
I fear the compiler is holding back Euphoria. The one concrete example i can think of at the moment is that tasks won't run correctly when compiled (or made into a dll?). Other features, like string execution, dynamic includes, creating and destroying separate program environments for sub-programs, are just easier in an interpreter. Even if the interpreter must call into a dll to do the hoop-jumping.
I am thinking the next releases of Eu can be done sooner if the compiler is un-necessary and more like optional gravey. Discuss and drag in some devs to this conversation!
Kat
