Brian Campbell  <lambda3@hotmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| I'm trying to get a handle on call/cc...
+---------------

I strongly suggest you buy & read this book (which, despite the title,
is really about Scheme [mostly]):

        "Lisp in Small Pieces", by Christian Queinnec
        [Originally in French as "Les Langages Lisp".]
        <URL:http://youpou.lip6.fr/queinnec/WWW/LiSP.html>
        <URL:http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/
             isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=0521562473>

The book presents a series of interpreters and compilers for Scheme,
each one handling additional details and/or refinements of the previous.
Issues of how full continuations interact with various parts of the
implementations are visited several times.

He also goes into extensive detail in presenting various options
for representing environments & lexical variables, code (at various
levels of interpretation and compilation), closures, stacks, etc.

Absolutely essential reading IMHO for anyone who wants to get
"under the covers" of the semantics & implementation of Scheme.


-Rob

p.s. The chapter on denotational semantics may seem daunting at first.
Fortunately, you can skim it or even skip it on first reading without
losing all that much. (Though if you do, it *is* well worth going back
and reading it more closely later.)

-----
Rob Warnock, 31-2-510		rpw3@sgi.com
Network Engineering		http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
Silicon Graphics, Inc.		Phone: 650-933-1673
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy.		PP-ASEL-IA
Mountain View, CA  94043