LC compilation

[Mike Kerner]

I don't see the original post, so I can only part-comment on this.
LC doesn't compile, per se. It builds standalone apps for all
platforms, but those apps include the LC engine, extensions,
libraries, and your stack(s). There is an obfuscator, but, no, no
bytecode or ML, yet. The apps behave as you would expect a standalone
app to behave, but, with a disassembler, you will have an easier time
with them than you would with a ML or BC compiled app.
The good news is that the current architecture makes remote debugging
from mobes much simpler, and, whether you are on a desktop or mobile
platform, you can include functionality such as side-loading and
real-time code execution trivially.
For example, let's say you have a debug build. If you include a button
in your debug build, with the following script, you can prompt for a
command, and execute it, live, in your standalone:

on mouseUp
   global gDo
   ask "Do what?" with gDo
   if it is not empty then
      put it into gDo
      do gDo
   end if
end mouseUp

The above script will also, as I am sure you deduced, store the last
command you typed, and prompt you with it, the next time you press the
button.
This is, of course, especially useful if you want to invoke the
debugger and then debug some routine. You can do that like by clicking
the button I just described, and then typing into the dialog:
breakpoint;send "mouseUp" to button "someButton" # steps you through
the debug button script, then to the mouseUp handler of "someButton"

We are all patiently waiting for the script compiler, which, as of
last conversation with Mark W., is going to be a bytecode compiler,
not a ML compiler.

On Mon, May 29, 2023 at 6:27 AM Mark Smith via use-livecode
<use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Skip,
>
> I’m surprised no one has taken a stab at answering this. I'm certainly no expert on the internal workings of LC or compilers but I can take a stab at articulating what I think the answer is, and when I get it wrong someone else can jump in to correct me (I should probably know this stuff better anyway).
>
> So if I am correct, the current environment converts LC script into some sort of (possibly binary) tree structure that is better organised to be executed by the LC engine. The engine is a big chunk of what I think is mostly Obj C (or some relative thereof) code that interprets the tree structures created in the first phase. So I guess that makes it sort of compiled? Compiled to execute in/on the LC engine, but also interpreted because the tree code is not executed on the target platform directly but is interpreted by the engine to generate the final executable result.
>
> As far as the script compiler project is concerned, I believe the goal is to create a byte code stream that can be interpreted more efficiently by (a possibly new?) engine. Not sure about the new engine part, but the idea is the tree structure thing goes away and in its place is a linear stream of byte codes that can both be executed more effiencetly but also optimised more fully. This particular byte stream (and here I’m going way outside my wheelhouse) is similar to what other compilers like Java, Python, (Pascal? — which I do know was a byte code compiled run time interpreted language… although companies like Borland eventually wrote Pascal compilers that executed directly on the target platform without any interpretation) produce. So, it would bring the LC compiled code more in line with what other compilers are producing which means post compilation the code could be optimised more completely using well developed industry standard approaches. And so everything ends up a little smaller and faster but it also opens the door to doing other things with the script code down the road.
>
> Well, that's my take on Mark Waddinghams’ most recent seminar on this topic. But he assuredly can fill you in much better than I can.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
>
>
> > On 28 May 2023, at 3:54 pm, Skip Kimpel via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> >
> > Wait… what?  I have been away from this list for a while, LC is not currently compilable??
> >
> > SKIP
> >
> >> On May 27, 2023, at 4:39 PM, harrison--- via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Skip,
> >>
> >> Doubtful.  I would wait until after we have a compilable version of LC and then it will be more possible.
> >>
> >> Rick
> >>
> >>> On May 27, 2023, at 12:26 PM, Skip Kimpel via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Has anybody done anything with LC and AR?
> >>>
> >>> Curious minds want to know :)
> >>>
> >>> SKIP
> >>
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