Re: Generating Java Bytecode

Nicolas Chapados wrote:


> I was planning to eventually work out the details of a WAM->JVM
> ``converter'' to get a portable Prolog system.


Paul Tarau (tarau@info.umoncton.ca) and I wrote during the summer a
Prolog to Java compiler (*) (admittedly not complete, neither as
optimised as one could, but fairly complete and with goodies as
intuitionistic assumption, backtrackable destructive assignment and
delay). We considered compiling to JVM code, but rejected this: the
JVM seemed not appropriate to us;
moreover, better compilers for Java are appearing and they will probably
do a better job starting from Java code then from JVM code; so in the
long run, it is probably more efficient to generate Java and reuse the
effort Java compiler writers are doing; and more portable;
about WAM->Java or JVM: if you want to implement Prolog in Java, you
might want to reconsider some design decisions of WAM; WAM is very
specialised towards a particular memory management and gets in the way
of what Java already offers;


(*) http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~bmd/PrologInJava


Bart Demoen


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