Re: Writing a Mac Ada compiler

[stt@henning.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft)]

Mike White (cons116@twain.oit.umass.edu) wrote:

: Could anyone give me an idea of about how much of an effort it would be
: to write an Ada compiler for the mac/powermac (or if youve had similar
: experience on other computers...).  I am quite dismayed by the general
: lack of Ada support on the mac and I figure others are too.  I have heard of
: compilers being ported to the mac, but a) I'd rather not wait and 
: b) I imagine it would be quite a learning experience.  Call me crazy.
: Anyways, would it be MUCH more difficult to write an ada 9x compiler
: than ada83?

Writing a full compiler for a language like C++, Ada 95, Fortran 90,
Eiffel, Modula-3, etc., is generally a 10-30 person-year effort.
On the other hand, if you just want something relatively simple
for your own use, you could ignore all the nasty parts and try
to put something together using Yacc, Lex, and some existing
simple public domain compiler (I believe there is at least one
such free C compiler for the Mac).  You could build it up slowly
over time.  For even more fun ;-), you might try to bootstrap early,
once you can compile very simple programs.

If you can wait until the beginning of next year, the Academic Ada
compiler will be coming out for the PC and the PowerMac.  Or you could
take GNAT and put your energy into porting that.  Porting GNAT is
probably about 100 times simpler than building a compiler from scratch.

In any case, the GW Ada/Ed for the Mac is quite nice for small programs.  
You could probably use it as your "bootstrap" compiler at least.

: mike white

-Tucker Taft   stt@inmet.com
Intermetrics, Inc.