On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 13:03:37 +0000 (UTC)
Martin Gregorie  wrote:

> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 12:22:18 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>
> > However, it remains that my computing interest, resulting from my first
> > real job 45 years ago, is to produce an interactive programming language
> > (the interactivity of BASIC or FORTH) but that runs at the speed of
> > compiled code and yet is fully reconstructable as the original source.
> >
> You probably already know this, but don't forget that many BASICs were in
> reality compiled because RUN compiled into some more compact form and
> then executed that.

 Another common approach with BASIC was semi-compiled where
statements would be compiled on the fly as they were encountered and a
cache kept of compiled statements - the first target when memory runs short
of course. The earliest of these caused some consternation as they
performed unreasonably well on benchmarks which were mostly short loops and
were thus fully compiled after the first iteration.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
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