Re: How long does it take to build a compiler?

Ten hours to build a parser from a pretty simple grammar sounds about
right. Then add from ten hours to ten years to finish the compiler.


The problem is not the nice, theoretical, structured problem of
recognizing valid sentences in the grammar and filling in a code template
with the parts you extract. That's easy. The problems are object module
formats, segmented memory archtiectures, baroque OS interfaces,
optimization, debuggers, dynamic memory allocation, I/O, separate
compilation, compiling-programs-that-don't-fit-in-memory, linkers, foreign
language interfaces, and general programming environment. Then some more
optimization, and some compile-time tuning. Now let there be listings
too!


It may be worthwhile to design some of these things into the overall
architecture of the compiler, instead of yaccing, lexing, and then
retrofiting the hard part.


-- Mike Ryer
--

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