Re: bytecode unification for scripting languages

[Matthias Felleisen <matthias@ccs.neu.edu>]

There seems to be a misunderstanding about languages and compilation ... 

Q: What's a dynamic language? 
A: A language that forces the run-time system to perform compiler-like
   tasks. The most extreme example that I can think of is loading a program
   fragment at run-time and integrating it into a running program. Other
   tasks are run-time type (tag) checking. Or vector-ref checking. (Pascal
   does more of it at compile time than Scheme.)

How is Java different in that regard from Scheme? You can load classes at
run-time, just like in Scheme. You do down-casts, just like in Scheme. 

As much as I admire the past adventurism of LISP and related things, words
such as "dynamic" language don't mean much,. They often just reveal that
people forgot (or never learned) programming language history. Schemers are
better than that. Let's show it to the world. 

-- Matthias