I guess maybe I'm a moron, but I just don't get posts like these (here and here).

Targeting the CLR is just like targeting any other machine, such as x86 for example. It just happens to be a little easier. Fortunately, we provide a big bag of pre-built abstractions. If you want to party with a category of other languages that already target the platform, you can choose to take advantage of these abstractions and be labeled CLS compliant. I'll be the first to admit that this entails some sacrifice, and a bit of kowtow to the C# gods. But it's a freaking choice. And not doing it leaves you no worse off than if you chose to target a different platform. Further, you can opt to produce verifiable code and take advantage of the runtime's security sandbox. This too requires little sacrifice, although your solutions might not seem as clever. Or not.

You're free to build up your own abstractions. You still get a bunch for free, like a kickass GC, a crapload of libraries (my Scheme runtime lib mostly consisted of one or two calls into Framework code), tools for debugging/profiling, and so on. Write 'em from scratch if you wish, it's all good. I know a lot of people enjoy writing GC's in their spare time (I'm not trying to be funny... it seems like a terribly complex and challenging exercise).

But, if somebody claims they can't write a dynamic language compiler on the CLR, well, they're certainly incapable of producing a dynamic language compiler that targets x86 or any other machine/VM. Or they're lying. So it hardly matters. It doesn't require too much imagination.

If somebody claims they can't write a dynamic language compiler on the CLR that interopates well with other CLR languages, we're working on making this better. But it seems that this is an even bigger challenge if you intend to interoperate at a layer above the platform altogether. So again, things certainly aren't worse on the CLR.

But hey... I'm now just another Redmond-ite who has had a little too much kool-aid for dinner. Oh! I'm late for my evening brainwashing session. BillG is good. BillG is great. ;)