From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3fc79ad704f81a40 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1995-03-09 20:01:51 PST Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!hookup!news.mathworks.com!zombie.ncsc.mil!admii!cmcl2!thecourier.cims.nyu.edu!thecourier.cims.nyu.edu!nobody From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Writing a Mac Ada compiler Date: 8 Mar 1995 19:32:52 -0500 Organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences Message-ID: <3jlibk$p5g@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> References: <3jg167$a3l@nic.umass.edu> <3ji8rc$rj8@nic.umass.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: gnat.cs.nyu.edu Date: 1995-03-08T19:32:52-05:00 List-Id: Mike, at this stage, I am afraid your lack of familiarity with compiler technology is showing. Writing a lexical analyzer and parser for Ada is by comparison with the rest of the task simple, but even these very simple tasks are by no means trivial, especially if you want to get any kind of decent error messages. As for the idea that the only remaining step is generating machine language, I am afraid it seems that your cource on compilers gave a rather false impression. The hard part of an Ada compiler is the semantic analysis. Developing a full Ada compiler with a code generator is indeed a difficult project. The estimates of person years you see are for people with extensive compiler experience. I would estimate that the time to complete such a project for people without this kind of experience would be essentially infinite. You would learn something trying, but you would have no chance of succeeding. If that seems like a challenge, fine, as I say you will certainly learn something trying. As for porting GCC, this is a task that is probably about one twentieth the effort of writing a compiler, but that too expects you to have significant experience with GCC and the technology. If you are starting from scratch and know little about compilers and processor architectures, you have a lot to learn before you can succeed in such a port. Also, a port to the Mac assumes a thorough familiarity with System-7, which in itself is not easy, the internals of this system are complex. After all, if it were easy to get a GCC port for the MAC, it would have been done some time ago. Note that getting a GNAT port once a GCC port is a MUCH simpler task, probably no more than a couple of person months at most to get a first attempt.