Re: Compiler Construction in Ada

[eachus@mitre-bedford.arpa (Robert I. Eachus)]

     I used to say that there are three parts to a compiler: parsing,
semantic analysis, and code generation and that I never met anyone who
enjoyed (or was expert) in all three areas.  Looking at the comments
on teaching compiler writing, I see exactly the same categories.  Has
anyone ever tried a (one-year, I hope) course where the various parts
were taught by different people?  I'd love to see a profile of how the
grades came out.

     Having said all that, I'll throw my two cents in.  Anyone who
says lex and yacc are wonderful doesn't understand parser theory very
well.  (They are hacks, actually, they are hacks on top of hacks.)  I
was fortunate when I taught compiler construction to have access to
LALR on Multics, which accepted all LALR(k) grammars and some grammars
that were not even in LR(k).  This allowed me to teach parser theory
with toy langauges then hand out a reasonably sized grammar for
students to build a translator on.  (Since I don't do code generation,
I usually assigned a Pascal to C translator or some such.)
--

					Robert I. Eachus

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