Re: Modularize compiler construction?

On 2010-01-23, Peng Yu <pengyu.ut@gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems that the current compiler construction tools (at least in
> bison and flex) are still very primitive. Let's take the following
> example to explain what I mean.


bison and flex are not tools for /complete/ compiler construction.


> easily composing different modules. It seems that there is a great
> semantic gap between what bison & flex offer and what compiler design
> need.


The gap between what you think a tool should do and what it does is
not a ``semantic gap''.


A word processor isn't a first-person shooter video game. If you
expect a word processor to be such a game, that doesn't mean there is
a ``semantic gap'' beween word processors and video games, only that
you have an unrealistic expectation.


Bison does not provide the semantics of translation, only a way to
build a parser, which is far, far from a complete translation scheme.
It can be argued that a parser-generation tool /should/ only do that
one job. A more complete compiler construction suite would still have
a parser generator tool inside it which does only parser generation.


The GNU project does have a much more complete compiler construction
suite: it's called the GNU Compiler Collection (perhaps you've heard
of it). In this suite you can write a new language as a front end
module, which re-uses the posterior modules.

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