A container is an object which stores top level variables. When you use a top level variable "foo", that's a reference to "foo" in the container that you're eval'ing your code inside.
A container can be a simple Arc table, or some object like a Racket namespace which can be made to act like an Arc table. So suppose I have a container `c`, and I eval some code in c:
(eval '(def foo () 123) c)
Now `c!foo` is the function foo:
> (c!foo)
123
A function can always call a function in another container if it has the same runtime. A compiled function ends up having a reference to the container it was compiled in because the top level variables used in the function are compiled to have a reference to the container, but other than that it's just a function.
A function in one container can call a function in another container with a different runtime if the runtimes are compatible. Which they might not be. For example, a function compiled in the srcloc runtime can call a function in the mpair runtime because both runtimes compile Arc functions to Racket functions, but the mpair runtime wouldn't understand an Arc list passed to it from the srcloc runtime made up of Racket syntax objects. So you might need to do some translation between runtimes depending on how different they are.
A runtime is how we choose to implement a language once a program has been compiled and is now running.
For example, in Arc 3.2, `cons` creates an immutable Racket pair, `car` works with a Racket pair or a Racket symbol nil, and `scar` modifies an Arc cons with Racket's `unsafe-set-mcar!`.
These are all runtime decisions. We could create a different runtime. For example, Arc's `cons` could create a Racket mpair, and `scar` could use Racket's `set-mcar!`.
For Amacx I've written two runtimes so far. One I called "mpair" because it implements Arc lists using Racket's mpairs. The other I called "srcloc" because it allows source location information to be attached to Arc forms (lists and atoms).
Currently, in srcloc, source location information is attached to forms using Racket's syntax objects. Thus, in srcloc, Arc's `car` can be applied to a Racket syntax object which wraps a list or nil, and it will unwrap the syntax object and return the underlying value.
It's a coincidence that I chose to call my runtime "srcloc" and Racket happens to also store source location information in a struct they call "srcloc" :-)
