emit-loop compiled every loop/recur to a self-recursive local closure called once
per iteration — relying on Janet TCO for stack safety but paying a fn frame + arg
bind each iteration. The jolt-5vsp spike localized the whole ~1.43x
jolt-over-hand-Janet gap on compute loops to exactly this.
Lower instead to a Janet `while` + state vars: the loop bindings become vars
carried across iterations, a recur writes them and raises a continue flag, and a
non-recur tail value falls out through a result var. recur-name routing in
emit-recur picks the while-set lowering for loops and leaves the fn-arity self-call
path untouched.
The one subtlety is closure capture: Janet closures capture vars BY REFERENCE, so
a closure built in the body over a shared mutable loop var would see the final
value ([3 3 3]) instead of its iteration's ([0 1 2]). Each iteration rebinds the
loop names into a fresh immutable `let` before running the body, which restores
per-iteration capture. recur reads those immutable bindings and writes the state
vars, so cross-referencing args (swap, fib) need no temps.
mandelbrot 218 -> 164 ms (~11.2x JVM, from 15x). fib is unaffected — it's
fn-arity recursion, not a loop. Regression spec in control-flow-spec covers
closure capture, no-clobber recur, nested loops, sequential init, recur through
let, and that fn-arity recur still works. Gate green (conformance x3, full suite).
Note: validating this after a rebuild needs JOLT_NO_DEPS_CACHE=1 — the deps-image
cache keys on the version string, not build identity, so it served stale codegen
(filed separately).
Co-authored-by: Yogthos <yogthos@gmail.com>
adds self-hosted compiler is functionally:
- The default compile path is the portable pipeline using jolt.analyzer (Clojure) → host-neutral IR → backend.janet.
- The analyzer is itself Clojure, compiled by jolt for true self-hosting.
- bootstrap-fixpoint passes (stage1 == stage2 == stage3): rebuilding the compiler on its own output.
- clojure.core is now self-hosted in the overlay.
- Stateful forms (defmacro/ns/deftype/defmulti/require/in-ns) are interpreted by design.
- case: quote list literals (read as arrays) in constant position so a wrapped
list ((a b c)) matches by value instead of being evaluated as a call; symbol
constants already quoted. Vector/map/set constants already worked. case errors
in the suite drop to 0 (60 pass).
- associative?: true only for vectors (pvec) and maps (phm/struct/sorted-map),
not lists/tuples-from-seq-fns/lazy-seqs/sets.
- reversible?: true for vectors and sorted-map/sorted-set only.
- update: coerce f via as-fn so (update m k :kw)/(update m k a-set) work; extra
args already handled.
- nth: (nth nil i)/(nth nil i default) returns nil/default instead of throwing.
clojure-test-suite pass 3649->3678, errors 122->105, clean files 44->46.
associative?/reversible? files now fully clean. spec: predicates + control/case.
jpm test green.
Mine the cljs port batteries into the spec layer and delete them (their behavior
is covered by spec; the unique functions they exercised are now specced).
Removed test/integration/ports/ entirely.
New/expanded spec coverage from the mining:
- spec/exceptions-spec: try/catch/finally, throw, ex-info/ex-message/ex-data/ex-cause
- doto, pr-str, keyword/symbol constructors, atom?, dynamic var binding
Two rare edges filed (jolt-...): rethrow of a caught ex-info re-wraps it; var-set
on a dynamic var inside binding no-ops. Core try/catch/ex-info and binding work.
Test layout is now spec (22 files, ~677 cases) / integration / unit / support.
conformance 218/218, jpm test green.
Add spec suites for conditionals/logic/let/loop/iteration/threading, functions
(definition, application, combinators), and destructuring across let/fn/loop/
doseq/for. Bug caught and fixed: loop* assumed simple-symbol bindings, so
(loop [[a b] [1 2]] ...) errored; it now destructures each binding via
destructure-bind, supporting patterns in loop bindings (and recur). jpm test green.
