Re: The making of compilers

[Keith Thompson <kst@cts.com>]

dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Keith Thompson <kst@cts.com> wrote in message
> news:<yecelj5c7uh.fsf@king.cts.com>...
> > I would have thought that Cobol was a poor language for
> > implementing a compiler, but Robert Dewar and others 
> > apparently did just that with Realia Cobol.
> 
> My guess is that Keith is not a COBOL expert :-)

You are quite correct.  Most of my exposure to COBOL consists of a
couple of hours of lecture in a comparative programming languages
class.  We spent a week on Fortran and COBOL; the instructor said it
was for resume purposes.

> Seriously usually this kind of opinion comes from people who do not
> know COBOL well. COBOL is a general purpose language with many
> attractive features, and is perfectly suitable for writing
> compilers.

Insert old "ADD ONE TO COBOL" joke here.  8-)}

Now, if you can write a self-hosting Intercal compiler, I'll be
impressed.  You can bootstrap it using Malbolge if you like.  (Topic?
What topic?)

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst@cts.com  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center           <*>  <http://www.sdsc.edu/~kst>
Schroedinger does Shakespeare: "To be *and* not to be"