Re: Ada and Java/C++

[Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid>]

On 12-08-28 11:31 , kalvin.news@gmail.com wrote:
> tiistai, 28. elokuuta 2012 9.57.40 UTC+3 Shark8 kirjoitti:
> 
>> But on a more serious note; it might be interesting to build a
>> [basically mufti-lingual] compiler that could, say, take a grammar
>> and a source and compile the source. {Yeah, that'd be kinda like
>> GCC, with all it's front-ends.} Then you could inexpensively try
>> out different grammars until you find your Ada/C hybrid.
> 
> This is an excellent suggestion. In that way one could prototype with
> the ideas and see what works and what doesn't.

Look up "metacompiler" or "compiler-compiler" or "compiler generator".
This area has been worked on for a long time, with some useful results,
but it is still not so easy to "try out a different grammar", except for
trivial (lexical) changes to the grammar, such as using curly brackets
instead of keywords.

Also, to see "what works", one would have to set up controlled
experiments involving many programmers using the various syntaxes for
various kinds of programs of non-trivial size. That becomes expensive,
unless you can interest teachers to force the experiments on students,
which, unfortunately, is not a realistic enviroment.

-- 
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
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