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Comment by 45g | Hacker News Reader

The HLVM implementation is for everyone to see at http://hlvm.forge.ocamlcore.org/ . There is a public mailing list at https://lists.forge.ocamlcore.org/pipermail/hlvm-list/ and I am sure Jon Harrop would be more than happy to discuss all technical details there.

Mono OTOH might be okayish for C#, but for instance F# so far has no open source implementation. Also Mono is lacking w.r.t. TCO and GC, so its not even close to a decent VM for functional languages.

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Yes, it's 'open' -- not arguing that, nor would I dispute that Mono is far from perfect. [1]

But, like so many FF projects: is this the cart, or the horse?

In other words, this feels more like a promotional project for the consulting firm and its pay products than it does a 'real' project. I freely admit this judgement has some external bias; Jon H. has a reputation.

[1] footnote: (Of course, neither is the linked project... 128 bits for each and every pointer on a 32-bit architecture? Does that mean 256 bits per pointer on 64-bit? Yikes!)

I'm Jon Harrop. HLVM is a hobby project that I work on when I can find the time. If I could commercialize it then I would but there is no short-term way to make decent money from a VM/language that I can see.

I suggest you think carefully about when HLVM's fat references are a disadvantage compared to the alternatives and why. The real reasons are not at all what you're thinking (or what I thought for a long time).

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