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Is there any shared lineage between this and Whalesong, a previous Racket->JS compiler? Of course both projects have the same maintainer if I recall, Jens Axel

by gcr 9mo ago

Is there any shared lineage between this and Whalesong, a previous Racket->JS compiler? Of course both projects have the same maintainer if I recall, Jens Axel Søgaard is a rockstar :)

neilv 9mo ago
Jens Axel Søgaard is cool and involved in many things. We collaborated on SICP support. Original developer of Whalesong was Danny Yoo. https://www.hashcollision.org/whalesong/ https://www.hashcollision.org/whalesong/ There was also this: https://docs.racket-lang.org/racketscript/ https://docs.racket-lang.org/racketscript/ Dave Herman worked on various JS-related libraries for Racket (or PLT Scheme) before he was involved with Rust.
- gcr 9mo ago
  ah that's right! apologies
soegaard 9mo ago
No, there is nothing in common with Whalesong. Whalesong used the built-in bytecode compiler and compiled the bytecode to JavaScript. Reusing the bytecode compiler is in principle a good idea - but each time the bytecodes are changed, Whalesong needs to be updated. And after the move to Chez Scheme as backend, the bytecode compiler is no longer a part of the main compilation path.
- brabel 9mo ago
  JVM languages always target bytecode because it’s much simpler and stable than Java as a language. It almost never changes and when it does it normally won’t break code generation since it’s only adding type system information, for example, as with records. Is Racket bytecode different?
  - shakna 9mo ago
    JVM bytecode is well specified. [0] Racket is not [1]. It's just the internal representation that the compiler uses. Sort of like marshalling in Python. [0] https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-6.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-6.ht... [1] https://docs.racket-lang.org/raco/API_for_Making_Bytecode.html https://docs.racket-lang.org/raco/API_for_Making_Bytecode.ht...
  - soegaard 9mo ago
    > Is Racket bytecode different? Changes to the bytecode representation were indeed rare also in Racket. The Whalesong project was written as part of a dissertation - and when people graduate and get jobs, projects are often abandoned.

by gcr 9mo ago

Is there any shared lineage between this and Whalesong, a previous Racket->JS compiler? Of course both projects have the same maintainer if I recall, Jens Axel Søgaard is a rockstar :)

neilv 9mo ago

Jens Axel Søgaard is cool and involved in many things. We collaborated on SICP support. Original developer of Whalesong was Danny Yoo. https://www.hashcollision.org/whalesong/ https://www.hashcollision.org/whalesong/ There was also this: https://docs.racket-lang.org/racketscript/ https://docs.racket-lang.org/racketscript/ Dave Herman worked on various JS-related libraries for Racket (or PLT Scheme) before he was involved with Rust.

gcr 9mo ago
ah that's right! apologies

soegaard 9mo ago

No, there is nothing in common with Whalesong. Whalesong used the built-in bytecode compiler and compiled the bytecode to JavaScript. Reusing the bytecode compiler is in principle a good idea - but each time the bytecodes are changed, Whalesong needs to be updated. And after the move to Chez Scheme as backend, the bytecode compiler is no longer a part of the main compilation path.

brabel 9mo ago
JVM languages always target bytecode because it’s much simpler and stable than Java as a language. It almost never changes and when it does it normally won’t break code generation since it’s only adding type system information, for example, as with records. Is Racket bytecode different?
- shakna 9mo ago
  JVM bytecode is well specified. [0] Racket is not [1]. It's just the internal representation that the compiler uses. Sort of like marshalling in Python. [0] https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-6.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/jvms-6.ht... [1] https://docs.racket-lang.org/raco/API_for_Making_Bytecode.html https://docs.racket-lang.org/raco/API_for_Making_Bytecode.ht...
- soegaard 9mo ago
  > Is Racket bytecode different? Changes to the bytecode representation were indeed rare also in Racket. The Whalesong project was written as part of a dissertation - and when people graduate and get jobs, projects are often abandoned.