🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9208261407.AA05332@news.cis.ohio-state.edu>, cb writes:
> >It sounds like you don't need C++ as much as a Petri net compiler that
> >takes your nice object oriented specification and spits out fast code, like
> >a big PROG, for example.
> >
> >k
> 
> I could do that, but part of the reason I started doing this was
> to show that petri-nets are a good example of something that maps
> well into object-oriented simulation.  As far as the programming
> of it goes, it is real nice to represent Places and transitions as
> objects and have the actions on them represented as methods.  However,
> if it's that much faster to compile the petri net spec into non-object-based
> code, then its pretty hard to argue that object-oriented simulation is
> a good thing.
> 
> 
> Chris

Since I haven't much idea about Petri nets, I'm sticking my neck out,
but...
Maybe rather than object-oriented _simulation_ you might think about
object-oriented _compilation_;  If Lisp & Clos allow you to quickly
write a program which `compiles' the petri net into a fast running
program --- it can even write a C program for all I care --- then it's
served a worthwhile purpose, no?

Ie. rather than have the objects & methods simulate whatever, why not
have them produce code which does the simulation?

I've done something similar generating some impressively fast Fortran
code from Lisp.  I would have hated to deal with the datastructures to
do the same using C, and Fortran!?!?! Ha.  Nobody would have attempted
to write the generated code manually in Fortran.

In anycase, you invent a mini-language on top of lisp;  the
specification of the Petri net (whatever that may be), in effect,
becomes the program.