It's interesting that the virtual machine is neither very fast nor it is memory efficient. If you really want to have max speed + portability, it's hard to beat restricted subset of C, especially since almost every platform has highly optimized compiler. Something like:
"Code must conform to C89 with -nostdlib, and can only link to libuxn (that we wrote). And use uxn_main() instead of main(), as libuxn defines main. No binary dependencies allowed, all source files must be in project directory, and only uxn build system can be used"
The the authors would only need to write libuxn for each platform they support, which is certainly easier and faster than writing a whole emulator.
But I am guessing this solution did not satisfy other criteria, perhaps things like "playful" and "build from first principles". It's a pity though - distributing apps in source code form instead of emulator binary would make them much more modifiable by end users.
"Code must conform to C89 with -nostdlib, and can only link to libuxn (that we wrote). And use uxn_main() instead of main(), as libuxn defines main. No binary dependencies allowed, all source files must be in project directory, and only uxn build system can be used"
The the authors would only need to write libuxn for each platform they support, which is certainly easier and faster than writing a whole emulator.
But I am guessing this solution did not satisfy other criteria, perhaps things like "playful" and "build from first principles". It's a pity though - distributing apps in source code form instead of emulator binary would make them much more modifiable by end users.