[Mono-list] Intel and the CLR?

[Fergus Henderson]

On 04-Mar-2002, Ben Houston <ben@exocortex.org> wrote:
> Are we are talking about implementing the MSIL (microsoft intermediate
> language) into a chip instead of another version of assembly language
> (i.e. x86, 680x0, PowerPC, Java byte code, etc...).  This is a horrible
> idea in that it locks the constructs that can be used in MSIL byte code
> because one can not upgrade a chip as easily as one can upgrade
> software.

Agreed.  But a Transmeta "Code Morphing" layer for the CLR would make very
good sense.

> I also do not see the point -- one compiles (ie. JIT
> compilation) MSIL into x86 assembly (or any other processor assembly
> language) anyways before running it anyways.  Thus the only benefit is
> that one does not have to JIT code before running it.  But even this
> benefit is minimal considering that .NET currently caches the result JIT
> binaries between sessions.

Are you sure?  Last time I looked, .NET did *not* automatically cache the
JIT binaries between different invocations of the same program.
It would cache it between different invocations of a method, but it was
an in-memory cache that would only last as long as the process.

Please check your facts.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
The University of Melbourne         |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.