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

dennis@netcom.com (Dennis Yelle)
16 Feb 1997 22:32:11 -0500

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[6 earlier articles]
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. kanze@gabi-soft.fr (1997-01-29)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. mw@ipx2.rz.uni-mannheim.de (1997-01-30)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. darius@phidani.be (Darius Blasband) (1997-01-30)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. kanze@gabi-soft.fr (J. Kanze) (1997-01-30)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. iainf@bristol.st.com (1997-02-07)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. mff@research.att.com (Mary Fernandez) (1997-02-11)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. dennis@netcom.com (1997-02-16)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. kanze@gabi-soft.fr (1997-02-16)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. nr@adder.cs.virginia.edu (Norman Ramsey) (1997-02-20)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. cfc@world.std.com (1997-02-22)
Re: recovery from syntax errors, was "ignorant newbie" question leichter@smarts.com (Jerry Leichter) (1997-02-22)
Re: recovery from syntax errors, was "ignorant newbie" question bear@sonic.net (Ray Dillinger) (1997-02-22)
Re: [QUERY] A "ignorant newbie" question about compiler-writing. fjh@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU (1997-02-23)
[4 later articles]
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From: dennis@netcom.com (Dennis Yelle)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 16 Feb 1997 22:32:11 -0500
Organization: Very little
References: 97-01-258 97-02-081
Keywords: errors

Mary Fernandez <mff@research.att.com> writes:
>He describes a technique that enables a compiler to emit only
>non-spurious error messages, i.e., messages not caused by cascading
>errors. This guarantees that the compiler produces the minimum number
>of error messages for the entire compilation unit and avoids the
>fallback solution of aborting after the first error. It's a good
>paper to read if you write compilers and/or teach a class on
>compilers.


There is nothing wrong with research into areas like this. But, as a
compiler user, I would be quite happy with a compiler that gave a
reasonable message with line number for the first error and then
aborted. What I don't like is a compiler that continues emitting
error messages (accurate or not) until the first one rolls off the top
of my 25 line screen. With the current hardware that is sitting on my
desk, it is no problem to fire up the compiler again after I fix each
error. And, with current software technology, I usually don't trust
the second error message anyway, unless it is obviously correct.


My experience, over many years, teaches me that the first error
message is probably close to being correct, the following ones are
probably not close to being correct.


It seems obvious that you cannot produce a compiler that will always
give a correct second error message, because the compiler cannot know
what I actually intended in place of the first error. So please just
give me a compiler that produces a good first error message and then
quits. Or give me a command line option for this. I beleave that
this will save me time overall.


Dennis Yelle
--
dennis@netcom.com (Dennis Yelle)
--


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