Re: What's lacking: a good intermediate form

"Max Hailperin" <max@gustavus.edu> wrote in message
> George Peter Staplin <georgeps@xmission.com> writes:
> ....
>> I agree such a thing is lacking. LLVM is apparently good, but it
>> requires working with their own code generation language from what I
>> understand, or C++. ...
>
> Actually no, for everyone wanting to whip up a quick compiler in the
> language of their choice, LLVM provides a nice alternative to their
> C++ API. Namely, you can output LLVM assembly language into a text
> file, and then use the LLVM assembler (which of course is written in
> C++, using the API) to take it from there. This slows down the
> overall compilation process, naturally, but is great for
> experimentation and students in a first course. I *really* encourage
> people to check out LLVM. I've found it great for the lab component
> of the undergraduate compilers course I teach, where the students are
> working in Java rather than C++, and take the approach of emitting the
> LLVM assembly language. If you want to take a look at the lab
> projects, they are available on the web. I'm not saying they meet
> anyone else's needs, but they should give some flavor of what it would
> mean to write a simple compiler this way. And it would work just as
> well in any other language that can write a text file.
>
> http://gustavus.edu/+max/courses/S2009/MCS-388/


I just realized that this is comp.compilers. (Maybe I should post in
comp.lang.misc, something similar to my OP). I, for anyone who hasn't
yet noticed, am interested in NOT writing a compiler but rather
developing my language concepts. (That of course is the major goal,
but I DO actually want to write the frontend of the compiler for my
language). That said, I think assuming that everyone wants to do the
end-to-end, from source code to machine code thing, happens to much. I
think a course on language design would be better first than a course
on compiler implementation. Indeed, some people couldn't care less
about one or the other.


The LLVM project seems to be hampered by the lofty goal of being able
to compile every beastly-to-implement language out there (or at least
the most beastly one: C++). Yes? Perhaps they are the ones who like
doing the compiler implementation thing and couldn't care less about
language design whereas I am more of the opposite.


Tony

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