Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing.

kanze@gabi-soft.fr (J. Kanze) wrote:
>
> It is, sort of. At the risk of being heretical here, I would suggest
> that compilers are among the simplest software currently being
> written.


Maybe true, but they also often have the tightest and least maleable
specifications of any software currently being written - network
protocols included. For example, if as many C compilers had as many,
and varied, warts as do the various TCP/IP in vendors' UNIX variants,
there would be almost no portable software written in C.


> What makes it hard(er) is that the programmers don't cooperate.


Neither do the Standards committees - most of the grosser hackery
inside compilers comes from the interaction of obsolete features with
more modern ones - Fortran-90's inclusion of both common blocks AND
fully encapulated modules (amongst others) comes to mind.


> even Pascal requires some hacks.


In my recollection, only in parsing (0.1 vs 0..1), though "with"
clauses can be a bit tricky regarding sematic analysis. (though I may
be wrong, as I haven't worked on a pascal compiler for about 7 years).


--
            Iain A F Fleming <URL:http://www.galactic.co.uk/iainf/>
--

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