[m-rev.] for post-commit review: grade-and-architecture-specific extensions

[Zoltan Somogyi]

On Sat, 21 Sep 2024 01:34:19 +1000, Julien Fischer <jfischer at opturion.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Sept 2024 at 01:13, Zoltan Somogyi <zoltan.somogyi at runbox.com> wrote:
> > I thought .dll files generally contain ISA-specific code, so I figured
> > the C# compilers we now use generated real, not virtual, machine code.
> 
> The C# compilers we use generate CIL bytecode (MS-IL) by default.

Would you object if I renamed the internal representation of this extension
from ..._dll to ..._cil_dll? The filename suffix would remain ".dll", of course.
This should make the documentation simpler.

> (That bytecode can be further compiled into native code, but we don't
> do that for Mercury; AOT compilation options also exist for Java.)

I remember when the introduction of just-in-time compilers from Java bytecode
to native code was hailed as a great advance over ahead-of-time compilation.
I also remember when Dalvik was replaced by Android Runtime, and its replacement
of JIT by AOT was hailed as another great advance, without any trace of irony
whatsoever :-)

Zoltan.