..
.......
>
>A key part of his proposal was that Guile would support translators
>from other languages, like Python, C, etc., to Guile.
>
>It didn't happen.  Writing those translators are hard because each
>of the languages has different object models, which must be implemented
>nearly perfectly.  Guile is a full-fledge language built on years of
>research into Lisp and scheme, so I would be surprised if it was any
>easier to implement in Parrot's byte code.  It didn't happen with
>Guile, it's even less likely to happen with Parrot.
.......

Isn't it a commonplace that the n x m translation problem is best solved
by having a common intermediate? This seems more efficient when 

m+n < n*m 

it seems that only those with sufficient muscle can force this on the
world eg Sun/IBM/M$. They can clearly see the need to support only one
backend. 

Funnily enough they kept telling me that as soon as I switched to
F99/C++ etc etc that everything would be portable. Now the buzz is
C#/Mono or Java, and perhaps Parrot. As long as the wheels keep turning
and the $'s flow they'll keep promising the next sliced bread.
-- 
Robin Becker