Newbie dumb question

[Archie Cobbs]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.


> We are not generally trying to support the transformation of whole Java
> programs to other programming platforms (similar I guess to transpilation).
> Nor are we trying to enhance the Java platform to provide a universal
> intermediate language. A main goal of Babylon is to broaden Java’s reach to
> foreign programming models. Arguably a more realistic and less ambitious
> goal :-)
>

That makes sense for the concrete use cases that are being talked about,
and it's a prudent conservative approach to getting started.

I just also have a gut feeling that there could eventually be a lot more to
this than is clear now, analogous to all the ways the JVM is being used
today beyond just the Java language. I guess it can come over time - gotta
start somewhere.

Lifting from bytecode can be an intermediate workaround for those ideas, so
I guess we'll see what people may come up with in any case.


> Much of Java’s core libraries are naturally written with Java in mind and
> the workings of the JVM (what else would we have in mind :-) ), trying to
> reinterpret that differently, or emulating, will be problematic.


Sure, maybe lots of code is highly optimized for running on the JVM, but as
long as the code doesn't (indirectly) invoke any native methods you should
still be able to slurp it into whatever giant transformation you're doing.
Hopefully the optimizations would get sophisticated enough over time so
that those original details would come out in the wash out so to speak.

Thanks,
-Archie

-- 
Archie L. Cobbs
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