Re: Java compiler courses

George Neuner wrote:


>>Most of the students on are never going to write a compiler. They are
>>studying the subject for two purposes:
>>
>>First because they want to know how their code is transformed into
>>machine code such that they can better predict how some piece of code
>>will work. Who cares what language the compiler is written in in
>>that case?
>
>
> I'm willing to bet that few people would take a course in compilers
> for that particular reason. It is so well known that code generation
> is implementation dependent that anyone can learn that much simply by
> lurking in her favorite programming newsgroup. The stock reply to
> such an inquiry is to turn on assembler listings, try different things
> and compare the results.


IMO an understanding, of how compilers work, is a must for code
writers. Compilers are not restricted to machine code creation, they
are around everywhere, when it comes to modeling and source code
transformation in general (scripting, XML...). It's easier to
understand the right use of such tools, with a certain background in
parsing and transformation of parse trees. The compiler back ends are
of lesser interest in such a general understanding of text processing.




> To that end, compilers are complex programs that intersect many skill
> areas. A professional developer will certainly need to successfully
> read and write files, parse input, format output, manipulate complex
> data structures, manage resources, plan strategy and schedule
> operations. Even a simple compiler touches on all of these things.
> Certainly, the student should be able to use any facility of the
> implementation language to help herself - but debugging comes with the
> territory.


ACK.


> Moreover, compiler courses are not "Intro to Programming" courses ...


Also right. In so far a single compiler course could tie together,
what is or has already had been covered by other courses. In my
studies the compiler course had been splitted into multiple parts,
starting very soon with the first part, and accompanied by courses in
related areas (languages etc.). IMO a "compiler" is something that
integrates a lot of other areas, and as such helps the students to get
a big picture, and a concrete example, for the application of other
more abstract stuff.


DoDi

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.