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: 103376,448990452c132610 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-02-26 17:16:15 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: byhoe@greenlime.com (Adrian Hoe) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: The making of compilers Date: 26 Feb 2002 17:16:15 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <9ff447f2.0202261716.33ea286f@posting.google.com> References: <5ee5b646.0202250655.6fd2bfb8@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 210.186.172.87 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1014772575 16341 127.0.0.1 (27 Feb 2002 01:16:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Feb 2002 01:16:15 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:20487 Date: 2002-02-27T01:16:15+00:00 List-Id: dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) wrote in message news:<5ee5b646.0202250655.6fd2bfb8@posting.google.com>... > "tony gair" wrote in message news:... > > After sticking my neck out and being shot out out of the sky by the big > > guns..................................... > > > > I heard from a lecturer in 1990 that compilers were built > > by writing a language subset compiler in assembler (or C > > or C++ or.....) and then by using that subset to step by > > step extend the language to its desired form. > > Yes, that's indeed the most reasonable approach if there are no > existing compilers for the language. For example, Alsys Ada was > initially implemented using a subset compiler written in PL/1. > > By the time GNAT was being created, the Alsys compiler > already existed, and we first wrote in Ada 83, and bootstrapped using > the Alsys compiler on a Sun, then once > we were bootstrapped, we step by step extended, so that > now we use quite a lot of Ada 95 features. > > > And he was really clever he was , he had glasses and a > > beard and everything. > > I am not sure of the reason for this frivolous comment, > but he was giving a perfectly reasonable account of how > things are done. Your tone seems to indicate skepticism, > but in this case I am afraid the skepticism comes from > ignorance, and glasses-and-beard knew what he was talking > about :-) Interesting! One can find a lot of Ada resources on the net. History, codes, compilers, etc. Why there isn't any Ada compilers' histories? This could be very interesting topic to add to the Ada resources. -- Adrian Hoe -- http://greenlime.com/users/adrian.hoe