Re: Newbie question: What is the importance for a compiler to be able to compi

kenney@cix.compulink.co.uk schrieb:


> Delphi distributions for example
> includes the complete source code of the compiler and the components.


Sorry, Delphi only comes with the source code of the libraries, the
compiler code is a secret. Perhaps you mean FreePascal, not Delphi?
The Delphi compiler possibly is written in C/C++ (CBuilder), as have
been parts of the libraries. At least Delphi 4 could not recompile the
libraries, because the supplied library code contained some C
snippets. In detail the libraries can be compiled only with an
specific compiler, which has built in some fundamental
definitions. Now the question is: how many compilers are involved, and
how many steps are required, to compile Delphi itself?


Delphi also is an example for bad portability. One of the show
stoppers with the Linux version (Kylix) was the IDE, which required
Wine and special kernel versions, that are far outdated now. But the
reason herefore most probably is the incomplete port of the Win32
based VCL into the Qt based CLX library, not the compiler code itself.


But all these are more arguments against closed source code, than for
the choice of the language for the implementation of an compiler.




> A different example is Forth. While you can write Forth systems in
> another language such as C a large proportion of them have a minimum
> word set in machine code and the rest is written in Forth.


Forth is more an example for the efficient use of a virtual
machine. The Forth "compiler" is only a macro assembler for that
VM. The "language" can be extended by such macros, so that the system
can be instructed to accept and interpret (or compile) arbitrary
languages.


DoDi

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