Re: Using Prolog to Compile Things

Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org>
12 Jun 1999 21:25:29 -0400

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Related articles
[5 earlier articles]
Re: Using Prolog to Compile Things gkt37@dial.pipex.com (JT) (1999-05-22)
Re: Using Prolog to Compile Things Daniel.Diaz@inria.fr (1999-05-22)
Re: Using Prolog to Compile Things bmd@cs.kuleuven.ac.be (1999-05-27)
Re: Using Prolog to Compile Things bromage@cs.mu.OZ.AU (1999-05-27)
Re: Using Prolog to Compile Things hunk@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu (1999-06-02)
Re: Using Prolog to Compile Things nickroberts@callnetuk.com (Nick Roberts) (1999-06-06)
Re: Using Prolog to Compile Things guerby@acm.org (Laurent Guerby) (1999-06-12)
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From: Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 12 Jun 1999 21:25:29 -0400
Organization: Club-Internet (France)
References: 99-05-069 99-05-094 99-06-009 99-06-030
Keywords: prolog

"Nick Roberts" <nickroberts@callnetuk.com> writes:
> [...] Second, I was actually seriously proposing that the compiler
> itself be written in Prolog (rather than a compiler compiler). My
> long term plan is, I think, to: (a) write a Prolog interpreter in
> Ada; (b) write an optimising Ada compiler in Prolog; (c) recompile
> the Prolog interpreter (to get a faster Prolog interpreter); (d)
> write a Prolog compiler in Prolog, and compile the Ada compiler
> (thus getting a faster Ada compiler); (e) convert the speed-critical
> parts (or maybe all) of the Ada compiler into Ada (thus getting an
> even faster Ada compiler). [...]


If you consider putting Ada in the loop and are interested mainly in
backend optimization issues, I suggest you choose a subset of the
language since writing a front-end able to reach production quality
for the full Ada 95 language is not a simple task, the estimate of 50
man years is floating around (and it's not including back-end work
here).


A practical already well defined subset is Spark 95, see the book
"High Integrity Ada : The Spark Approach" by John Barnes,
Addison-Wesley Pub Co; ISBN: 0201175177. You might want to add dynamic
allocation and a few other gizmo so you can program your compiler
easily with it (note that the GNU Ada compiler has its front end
written in Ada, and started with a small subset so as to be able to
bootstrap as early as possible and abandon the Ada 83 commercial
compiler used at the beginning of the project ;-).


--LG


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