> You can pickle functions in python? You can trivially serialize any lisp function (I'm not a lisp fan).
The point of the tree calculus appears to be that it doesn't require the intermediate step of "pickling" or, as the author calls it, "quoting" the program to produce a data structure or other representation of the program [0]:
Previous accounts of self-interpretation had to work with programs that were not
normal forms, that were unstable. Stability was imposed by first quoting the program to
produce a data structure, by putting on some make-up. In tree calculus, the programs are
already data structures, so that no pre-processing is required; both of the self-evaluators
above act on the program and its input directly. In short, tree calculus supports honest
reflection without make-up.
It sounds similar to the notion of homoiconicity as in Lisp, but probably more precisely or even strongly stated.
> Plenty of programming languages with both macros and first class function objects (those that can be passed around and thus have data representations).
A language may have first class function objects, but its actual structure may be opaque and not open to reflection or manipulation (beyond of course just munging the source code as plaintext). You can maybe create a function literal, pass the function around and to higher-order functions, but you can't inspect or modify its internal structure, or decide program equality (based on either exact structure, or one program reducing to another according to the reduction rules of the calculus).
Lastly the tree calculus would also appear to differ from the lambda calculus in that programs are stable and won't reduce infinitely, instead converging on some normal form of irreducible terms. [1]
More precisely, the distinction would seem to be that programs in the tree calculus can analyze themselves with reference only to the reduction rules of the calculus, not needing to reach for some meta-language or theory outside the calculus that works on source code or some AST representation of the program [0]:
Reflective programs are programs that can act on themselves to query their own struc-
ture. The querying is important: that the identity function can be applied to itself does
not make it reflective. A simple example is the size function defined in Chapter 5.
When applied to itself, the result is (the tree of) the number 508 [...] Self-evaluation
in a calculus provides good evidence for the ability to perform program analysis and
optimisation within the calculus itself. Traditionally, self-interpreters were allowed to
act on the syntax tree of a program, i.e. its quotation. [...] When quotation lies
outside of the formal calculus then interpretation is separated from computation proper,
so that some sort of staging is required.
A demo of a size function is given here [1], implemented directly in the tree calculus:
The point of the tree calculus appears to be that it doesn't require the intermediate step of "pickling" or, as the author calls it, "quoting" the program to produce a data structure or other representation of the program [0]:
It sounds similar to the notion of homoiconicity as in Lisp, but probably more precisely or even strongly stated.> Plenty of programming languages with both macros and first class function objects (those that can be passed around and thus have data representations).
A language may have first class function objects, but its actual structure may be opaque and not open to reflection or manipulation (beyond of course just munging the source code as plaintext). You can maybe create a function literal, pass the function around and to higher-order functions, but you can't inspect or modify its internal structure, or decide program equality (based on either exact structure, or one program reducing to another according to the reduction rules of the calculus).
Lastly the tree calculus would also appear to differ from the lambda calculus in that programs are stable and won't reduce infinitely, instead converging on some normal form of irreducible terms. [1]
[0] https://github.com/barry-jay-personal/tree-calculus/blob/mas...
[1] https://sci-hub.se/https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1016/j.tcs....