From: Chris Morgan <mihalis@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Building a compiler (was: Fixed point multiplication ambiguity)
Date: 1999/02/03
Date: 1999-02-03T08:44:13-06:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87aeyv4kbg.fsf@mihalis.ix.netcom.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 7982p7$nll$1@plug.news.pipex.net
"Nick Roberts" <Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com> writes:
> But ... people have the strangest passions (climbing mountains, leaping out
> of aircraft, standing for presidential election), and mine happens to be
> building an Ada compiler. It's a bit like sex: if nobody did it, there would
> be no more people! Well, somebody's got to build Ada compilers: if nobody
> did it, there would be no Ada compilers.
Presumably there are some "itches" in the design of GNAT/GCC that you
would like to scratch by building your own alternative. I have to
wonder though whether you wouldn't get more satisfaction out of
building extended versions of GNAT. There have been some discussions
of language extensions on this group, including one for which Tucker
Taft eventually gave the most popular new syntax.
I am reminded of some code I once tried to rewrite at a Wall St
firm. It was so horrible to read I thought I would replace it with
clean code, but the more I coded, the more I understood the old
horrible stuff, and eventually I saw the fix was 5 lines long (with
one cheat) and I had more confidence in those 5 lines than a new
implementation (given that there was some interaction with other bad
code). [Aside : Of course that did no favours to the next poor chap to
look at the code, but that's the way that firm works, anyway it was
C++.]
Still, if you want to try, it's a worthy challenge, let us know when
your parser runs faster than GNAT's ;) I once thought about it myself
but I decided my interest lay in how correct code is translated
(implementation of language constructs) whereas real compilers have to
do a lot of drudgery handling all those pesky user errors.
Chris
--
Chris Morgan <mihalis at ix.netcom.com http://mihalis.net
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1999-02-03 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 59+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1999-01-14 0:00 Fixed point multiplication ambiguity Marc A. Criley
1999-01-14 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1999-01-14 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1999-01-15 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-01-28 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-01-28 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-01-28 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1999-01-28 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-01-29 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-01-29 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1999-01-29 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-01-29 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1999-02-01 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1999-02-02 0:00 ` Building a compiler (was: Fixed point multiplication ambiguity) Nick Roberts
1999-02-03 0:00 ` dennison
1999-02-03 0:00 ` Chris Morgan [this message]
1999-02-04 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-04 0:00 ` Garbage collection - was " news.oxy.com
1999-02-04 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-05 0:00 ` David Botton
1999-02-05 0:00 ` Tom Moran
1999-02-18 0:00 ` news.oxy.com
1999-02-18 0:00 ` AdaHag
1999-02-18 0:00 ` David Botton
1999-02-18 0:00 ` dewar
1999-02-18 0:00 ` Garbage collection - was Re: Building a compiler Samuel Mize
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Samuel Mize
1999-02-19 0:00 ` Garbage collection - was Re: Building a compiler (was: Fixed point multiplication ambiguity) Steven Hovater
1999-02-20 0:00 ` A Modest Defense of ACT (though they are big boys and can take care of themselves) Steve Quinlan
1999-02-21 0:00 ` dewar
1999-02-22 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1999-02-21 0:00 ` bill
1999-02-22 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1999-02-22 0:00 ` dennison
1999-02-22 0:00 ` dennison
1999-02-24 0:00 ` Steve Quinlan
1999-02-25 0:00 ` dewar
1999-02-25 0:00 ` Steve Quinlan
1999-02-25 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-25 0:00 ` dennison
1999-02-26 0:00 ` Steve Quinlan
1999-02-26 0:00 ` dennison
1999-02-27 0:00 ` Simon Wright
1999-02-27 0:00 ` Dave Taylor
1999-02-28 0:00 ` dewar
1999-02-05 0:00 ` GC+HC for GNAT/GCC (was: Building a compiler) Nick Roberts
[not found] ` <m33e4jvs1n.fsf@muc.de>
1999-02-06 0:00 ` GC+FSD for GNAT/GCC Nick Roberts
1999-02-07 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-02-05 0:00 ` Building a compiler Nick Roberts
1999-02-05 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1999-02-06 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-01-30 0:00 ` Fixed point multiplication ambiguity robert_dewar
1999-02-02 0:00 ` Building a compiler (was: Fixed point multiplication ambiguity) Nick Roberts
1999-02-03 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1999-02-03 0:00 ` robert_dewar
1999-01-14 0:00 ` Fixed point multiplication ambiguity Tom Moran
1999-01-14 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1999-01-14 0:00 ` David C. Hoos, Sr.
1999-01-14 0:00 ` bob
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