Re: Language used to write compilers

On Wed, Dec 29, 2004 at 01:45:09AM -0500, Joe H. wrote:
> I am thinking of taking a university course in compiler design. The
> instructor has chosen a book that teaches compiler implementation in
> Java. I always thought that compilers were usually written in C/C++.
>


I imagine the course focuses on the techniques used for writing
compilers, which should be applicable no matter what language you use.
While historically compilers were indeed written in C/C++, that was
probably because there were few usable alternatives in the past. I
have had experience writing compilers in C, and I can say that it is a
messy job that obscures the details of compiler design. C in
particular has very poor string handling capabilities, and most
compilers will need to often perform complex string manipulation in
the course of their operation. It is necessary to also create your
own ad hoc symbol tables and other data structures crucial to compiler
design, because the language doesn't have anything standard that will
suffice.


Java is a better language for this task, because of the automatic
garbage collection, reasonable string handling, and the decent library
of data structures that can be readily adapted to compiler
applications. There is also the ANTLR parser generator which does for
Java what Lex and Yacc do for C.


Nonetheless, the best language IMHO for writing compilers has got to
be Objective Caml.


> Question - what languages are used to write compilers? My world is
> Unix/Linux - should I wait until a course is offered using C/C++?


No.

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