Re: State of the Art

Peter <peter.deussen@fokus.fraunhofer.de> writes:


> I havn't worked in compiler construction and programming languages for
> some years, but now I have a chance to return to this area. I would
> like to find out what happened while I was absent.
>
> So, let me ask the following questions:
> - In your opinion, what are the greatest advances in compiler
> construction in the last ten years?


I think the greatest advance has been exploiting the higher speed and
more memory of modern computers. This means that you can use
parser-generator tools and keep the whole syntax tree in memory and do
multiple passes over it without having to write out to a file after
each pass. This makes writing a comiler a lot easier.


JIT compilation has also had great advances in the last decade.


Otherwise, I think the advances are more in programming languages than
in compilers.


> - What are the most important current trends?


I would say the most important current trend is compiling for
multi-core CPUs (such as Cell).


Torben

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