On Aug 17, 2017, at 9:16 AM, Hendrik Boom hendrik@topoi.pooq.com wrote:
On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 10:11:05PM -0400, Marc Feeley wrote:
Currently we are working on implementing a tree shaker to reduce the size of generated code.
First time I've heard the term "tree shaker". Last time I saw a tree shake was at night a few hears ago, when the tree I was walking under suddenly acquired a nimbus of water drops, and then a major branch fell off. If I had been a second later in walking by the tree, I would likely be dead.
For me it's a very vivid image.
It's kind of an old-fashioned terminology in the lisp world for procedures that try to determine the parts of the lisp that are not used at runtime. In some languages that's simple: you just don't link things that are not referenced. In lisps it's not so cut and dried, because programs can dynamically construct references to things, thus the metaphor of "shaking loose" things that are not "strongly attached".