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Is it possible to have a language transpire/compile to elisp?

It is possible to emit Emacs Lisp instead of bytecode/lapcode. This was the first code generator target actually.

Easier to debug, simpler to trust (for the end user) and not that hard to generate.

The problem is that it is harder to implement some features of Go in terms of Emacs Lisp without going down to the virtual machine level. Best examples are arbitrary return statements (can be emulated by throw/catch) and goto.

Could you implement arbitrary return with cl-block and cl-return-from?

It is technically possible, but optimal solution will require more than catch and throw (cl-lib uses them) Simple demonstration: https://pastebin.com/vXp0qPw3

Some S-expressions with `cl-return' can be rewritten to avoid the need of it (by the optimizer); not sure it covers 100% of the cases though.

With minor Emacs Lisp compiler patch (addition of %return, %goto and %label intrinsics), it is now possible to output Lisp that is optimal.

Possible implementation (about 20 lines of code): https://github.com/Quasilyte/goism/issues/57

Not sure if "defadvice" around "byte-compile-form" is acceptable for all users.

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