Re: [boost] Re: PP: Beta-reducer for closed lambda-terms

From: Paul Mensonides (pmenso57_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-04-21 16:46:16

Vesa Karvonen wrote:
> I'm also very interested in seeing the Chaos library from Paul. I do
> not really know the philosophy of Chaos to be sure, but I think that
> Order and Chaos could benefit from and complement each other. The
> Order-interpreter
> has been made possible by several discoveries in PP-metaprogramming
> by Paul and me.

Chaos *is* the pp-lib, but redesigned from the ground up to take advantage of
strictly conformant preprocessors.  It also includes facilities that are
significantly more complex than the CVS pp-lib.  High-precision arithmetic is
implemented for example, as is a parametric lambda facility (not a
lambda-calculus facility like Vesa's work, more like the other Boost lambda
libraries).  The most fundamental differences between Chaos and the CVS pp-lib
is a full abstraction of recursion.  It is *algorithmic*, which means
implementing things like REPEAT, FOR, FOLD_LEFT, WHILE, and even
FOR_EACH_PRODUCT all only require about three or four macros each.  Chaos is
also implemented from the ground up to support variadic macros and placemarkers
from C99.

> Also, Paul has mentioned that Chaos implements efficient high
> precision arithmetic. The high precision arithmetic of Chaos could
> probably be used from the Order-interpreter, which could, for some
> parts, basically act as a convenient high-level front-end to the
> efficient low-level facilities of Chaos. But like I said, I don't
> know enough about Chaos to be sure.

I'm still debating whether to provide fixed, high-precision arithmetic, or
arbitrary precision arithmetic.  I can do either, but fixed orecision would be
faster.  Maybe I'll do both....

Regards,
Paul Mensonides