Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!bzs
From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: self-modifying code
Message-ID: <20021@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 20 Feb 88 00:14:25 GMT
References: <486@taux01.UUCP> <666@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 11
In-reply-to: ok@quintus.UUCP's message of 19 Feb 88 09:48:24 GMT



Actually I'm not sure exactly where the confusion between
self-modifying and dynamically loading code is coming in. I've seen at
least one lisp which used self-modifying code to some advantage,
typically to poke in debugger and other evalhooks when desired (into
the main eval loop) or simply remove them when not wanted (for speed's
sake.) It may only be a few tests saved, but consider how many times a
lisp program travels through the eval loop, like every iterative loop
for interpreted code.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University