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by norswap 5514 days ago
It looks all nice and well, but why can't languages these days be compiled ? I reckon it's way harder to do, but there's no major impediment to achieve what can be achieved in a language based say on the CLR.
2 comments

Compiled in native? CLR compile IL before execution.

In the next version of Nemerle we plan to create Interchangeable back-ends: http://code.google.com/p/nemerle-2/wiki/BackEnds?wl=en-US

As one of the variants we consider to create backend for LLVM. At least we think about it.

Why waste time writing a compiler when you can leverage much of the work already done to optimize .NET?

If the clients don't have it, make your installer download it and be done with it.

It's much harder to get enough of a .NET runtime together for a new platform than it is to lean on a platform compiler and binary toolchain which must already exist. It's all very well saying "just download the installer," but that won't get my nemerle code running on my phone.
What phone? Chances are Mono run there...
Nokia N900. Ok, so there's Mono for Maemo, so that's not a particularly convincing argument in itself. However, the point stands - replace Nemerle with Scala, for instance, and I'm stuffed (mostly).