[gambit-list] Gambit internals documentation - draft of questions now on the wiki.

Mikael mikael.rcv at gmail.com
Fri Aug 31 16:27:21 EDT 2012


Hi Panos,

2012/8/30 panos stergiotis <babu5677 at gmx.ch>

> Hi all!
>
> first: Good work and great idea! I am looking forward to read the answers
> to the listed questions. Seems like a great opportunity to learn a lot.
>

Thanks. Yes shared. Yes.


> Missing points: Perhaps adding some question on the readtable
> implementation and six-syntax would be nice. This also includes how
> serialization works and how lexical forms (e.g. when write or pretty-print
> is applied to a data-structure) are generated (the ##wr stuff).
>

I intended this particular document not to be a complete, unexhaustible
resource of Gambit knowledge, but more like a conceptual but detailed
document regarding the complex stuff in Gambit and how Gambit fits together:

Those things could take an eternity to figure out for the purposes of
studying, extending and/or debugging, and that is where documentation
becomes decisive.

Yes I suppose some question on the anatomy of the readtable and six-syntax
implementation would make good sense. I'll add questions about this soon,
if you have a suggestion for how to put them please feel free to suggest.

Re the serialization, from my reading of its source it appeared pretty
clear, perhaps there would be something about how closure and procedure
serialization of interpreted and compiled code works to ask about, though
didn't get as deep as to know where you easily get lost in figuring out how
that fits together and thus what to ask about.

Will add some more questions soon too about what procedures and closures
are actually compiled to and some more.

Brgds,
Mikael


> But I am pretty new to gambit and just wanted to use the opportunity to
> say a big THANK YOU to Marc for this great and inspiring piece of software
> and everybody like Mikael who pushes documentation forward.
>
> Best
>
> -------- Original-Nachricht --------
> > Datum: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 14:47:32 -0500
> > Von: Mikael <mikael.rcv at gmail.com>
> > An: gambit-list at iro.umontreal.ca, Marc Feeley <feeley at iro.umontreal.ca>
> > Betreff: [gambit-list] Gambit internals documentation - draft of
> questions    now on the wiki.
>
> > Hi guys!
> >
> > Short summary: Please check section 4 and on on
> > http://dynamo.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/wiki/index.php/Design_guide, and
> > please give feedback the next 10 days!
> >
> >
> >
> > Long version:
> >
> > Please find here
> > http://dynamo.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/wiki/index.php/Design_guide a
> draft
> > of the Gambit documentation document spoken about in May.
> >
> > The purpose with the document is to communicate to the reader how Gambit
> > works internally in the core areas (compilation, the stack with
> > continuations, memory and object handling, threads, and so on).
> >
> > The document is a system of questions, whose answers from Marc will
> > communicate this entire picture.
> >
> > Until now there has been no such documentation, and I believe this
> > document
> > provides a suitable format to give the whole picture in an efficient way.
> >
> > It's really important that there is documentation of Gambit's internals,
> > to
> > enable people to understand for themselves different aspects of Gambit's
> > architecture, and make deep debugging and extensions.
> >
> > I hope and believe the document will prove valuable due to the profound
> > yet
> > conceptual level detail it is at. It's profound enough to provide
> > sufficient information for those those who want to dig into and do hard
> > work with Gambit's internals, yet conceptual and brief enough for the
> user
> > to read the document in its entirety and get how all of Gambit fits
> > together, with lots of associated aha experiences.
> >
> > I do believe that Marc's answers will give rise to some more questions in
> > response, that will extend the document further a bit when they come.
> >
> > If you have any feedback - suggestions for more questions,
> clarifications,
> > or perhaps removals, then please tell them here during the next ten days!
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Mikael
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