Re: Java compiler courses

Andy Johnson wrote:


> For one thing, to continue the tradition. Many compilers have been written
> in the same language as they are compiling (e.g. javac). If you are
> bootstrapping a compiler, it's always good to have your own killer test
> application, which is the compiler itself.


A very good point! Really :-)


But is the N-th reimplementation, of an compiler for an already existing
*general purpose* programming language, a practical situation for
compiler writers in real life? And is the implementation of an compiler
really a practical test case for students, which are trying to implement
their first compiler at all?


Many of the languages, to be implemented at work, may not be very well
suited for the implementation of an compiler, or may not be
Turing-complete at all.


Therefore I think that the choice of the language should be splitted for
educational purposes, into the compiler implementation and application
language. The implementation lanugage must come with all the required
libraries, whereas the application language should allow to write test
cases, without a need for implementing a huge runtime system, in
addition to the compiler itself.


DoDi

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