Comment by tromp

Comment by tromp 3 days ago

My IOCCC entry [1] explains exactly what the 43-byte program is. It's a self-interpreter for BLC8, the byte based version of Binary Lambda Calculus.

The 521 byte interpreter on the other hand is written in x86 assembly, a language much less suitable for writing BLC8 interpreters than BLC8 itself.

Btw, with my latest lambda compiler, the BLC8 self interpreter is only 42 bytes:

    λ 1 ((λ 1 1) (λ (λ λ λ 1 (λ λ λ 2 (λ λ λ (λ 7 (10 (λ 5 (2 (λ λ 3 (λ 1 2 3)))
    (11 (λ 3 (λ 3 1 (2 1))))) 3) (4 (1 (λ 1 5) 3) (10 (λ 2 (λ 2 (1 6))) 6))) 8) 
    (λ 1 (λ 8 7 (λ 1 6 2)))) (λ 1 (4 3))) (1 1)) (λ λ 2 ((λ 1 1) (λ 1 1))))

[1] https://www.ioccc.org/2012/tromp/

Dansvidania 3 days ago

thanks, this is helping me understand the whole article a bit better.

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johnisgood 3 days ago

Yeah, I just took a real look now. It uses a metacircular evaluator? I didn't look at the link provided just yet though! :D

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cess11 3 days ago

"For example, its metacircular evaluator is 232 bits. If we use the 8-bit version of the interpreter (the capital Blc one) which uses a true binary wire format, then we can get a sense of just how small the programs targeting this virtual machine can be."
From TFA. I think it's a very good article.

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