Re: Writing a Mac Ada compiler

[cons116@twain.oit.umass.edu (Mike White)]

Arthur Evans Jr (evans@evans.pgh.pa.us) wrote:

: If you have time on your hands and want to address this problem, port
: GCC 2.6.3 to the Mac, and then bootstrap GNAT.  That's a much more
: modest task and will result in a first class compiler.

Would it really be that much easier to port it? Have you seen the source
code?  I haven't, so I am wondering how well designed/documented it is.
I realize it's a pretty big task, but 10+ man-years?  O.K.  I'll admit
it's probably not a one-man project, but if others were interested in
working on such a project...

  I mean seriously, I wrote a simple lexer and parser (both using Ada
by the way) in my systems class both in a semester.  Both of these
were easily extensible for large projects, and the grammar
for Ada is widely available.  Beyond that, converting to machine code
would seem my biggest problem, never having done mac or powermac assembly.
Interfacing with mac system calls seems pretty basic since they are well
defined.  I imagine one would convert the parameter conventions from Ada
to the system via MacHeaders.

  Just some thoughts.  I need to do some more research obviously before
making any attempt.  Anyone interested in participating on a joint effort,
either working from scratch or doing a port?  Please reply here so that
everyone interested can read it, myself included.

mike white