Portability/Compiler talk, Lowell, 4/22

                                            UMASS - LOWELL


                                COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT


                                          COLLOQUIUM SERIES




          Portability Considerations for the Compiler Writer
                                                          by
                                              Jeffrey Barth
                        Co-founder, Silicon Valley Software


  Wednesday, April 22, 1992, 3:00 p.m., refreshments at 2:30
                      University of Massachusetts at Lowell
                Wannalancit 116, 175 Cabot St., Lowell, MA
              directions available from john@cs.ulowell.edu


                                                    ABSTRACT


          Portability of computer software is a key factor in the determination
of its commercial value. Obviously, programs which are carefully written
in high-level languages and which make effective use of abstraction may
have excellent portability characteristics. If such a program is an
application such as a spreadsheet, a set of factors apply which represent
the ``portability considerations'' for that kind of software. It turns
out that for the class of programs that are language processors
(compilers, interpreters, and related systems such as debuggers, run-time
libraries, and linkers), the portability considerations are substantially
broader. In fact, there are issues unique to this class of software, as
well as solutions applicable only in this domain. Not only is familiarity
with the perspective of the compiler writer helpful in improving one's
understanding about portability in general, but it also gives users of
language processors an appreciation of why these systems are the way they
are. In this talk the emphasis will be on exposing different facets of
portability as viewed by the compiler writer, rather than on in-depth
exploration of details or solutions to the issues raised. The material
for the talk is based on ten years of product evolution at an independent
third-party vendor of language systems for 32-bit microprocessors and is
illustrated by many real world examples.


Host: Dr. Arthur Watterson
--

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