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Agreed! I think both projects can coexist, but there could be some components that we could share. I was in talks with Hans last year about potentially supporti

Agreed! I think both projects can coexist, but there could be some components that we could share. I was in talks with Hans last year about potentially supporting EIR opcodes in Enigma. I do think that Lumen is potentially more interesting in the real world usecases though, and I wish you best of luck. Having an alternative Erlang compiler is a lot more complex but allows us to explore new techniques easier that could potentially be ported back to OTP if nothing else.

bitwalker 6y ago
Absolutely! I strongly believe we should be building alternative implementations of the Erlang compiler, the runtime, the virtual machine - all of the major components. It provides a lot of useful data that, if nothing else, can be used to improve the original implementations in the BEAM. Enigma is a great example of how reimplementing such a core piece of that infrastructure can provide better learning opportunities for the community, as well as a way to clean the slate and start with a fresh look at the problem with modern tools. If nothing else I'd really like to see projects like ours demonstrate the value to the core Erlang/OTP team in addressing the lack of documentation in some areas - ideally in the form of one or more specifications. Erlang deserves a specification at this point - it is very stable, and a spec would at the very least provide additional structure for future evolution. Core Erlang had a specification, but it is very much out of date at this point - considering how widely it is used as an IR for BEAM languages in general, it's disappointing it hasn't been kept up to date.