Re: Language Processor Generators

ckminer@lance.colostate.edu (Chris Miner) writes:
>Lately there has been talk of little languages, and their compilers. I have
>also heard reference to the usefulness of Lisp, Lex and Yacc in compiler
>construction. ... With this mind, I though it would be good to have a tool
>which constructs a language processor, LP, from a specification of the
>language.


There is another way of attacking the whole problem. Language processors
do not need to be compilers at all, they could be interpreters. Such
interpreters can often be consructed using already existing, designed to
be extended, interpreters. I often use TCL (see comp.lang.tcl) for this
purpose, but elk also exists.


I have found that I can create a TCL based little language interpreter in
much less time than it would take me to build a compiler for the language,
IF the language fits well into what TCL already provides. This is because
TCL provides variables and control structures "for free" and is designed
to be extended.


Note that since all little languages built this way retain many properties
of the base interpreter, they made not be suitable for your research.


Joshua Levy (joshua@veritas.com)
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