Re: language design references wanted

preston@helena.rice.edu (Preston Briggs) writes:
>At any rate, the local lore is that compiler writers should _not_ design
>languages. Instead, they should be confined to tiny cages and forced to
>implement the language as specified, dammit...


It is important to decide what your objectives are. If you are building
a compiler for more or less an existing language, it is a mistake to get
involved in redesigning the language at the same time. The folks who did
PL/C, oh so many moons ago, summed it up well (approximately): "in the
end we decided to implement the language unchanged, warts and all, because
it became clear that otherwise we would spend all our time and effort on
language design instead of implementation".


Language design, although fun, is an enormous time sink. Doing it well is
much harder than it looks.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
--

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