Re: which tool to use?

walth@netcom.com (Walter Howard) said:
> I have to add a language to a product I'm developing and have
> time to build a good interpreter for it. [ ... ] Since I'm a
> beginner in this area I don't have any backwards compatibility
> problem in my wetware. [ ... ] The language I want to write
> would be C like with some added statements relevant to the
> environment I'd be dealing with.


Well, given that there are _zillions_ ready made extension languages, and
you are a beginner, I would be wary of doing another one.


The leading extension language condenders are various flavours of
Lisp/Scheme, various flavours of shells, and various flavours of other
languages. The names I think are most commendable are Elk, Tcl, Python.
Any of these is extensible, easy to integrate with other programs, has a
long track records, and so on. Most also have an X oriented version, that
you could probably turn into a Workplace shell version more or less
easily. There are many more; I have seen a freeware REXX clone (and REXX
is IBM's SAA standard for OS/2), and countless others. There is also a
freeware C intepreter, that I mention later on in this article. I would
think that Tcl or Python would server you especially well (Python is also
fully OO); they are C-like, in some ways, more syntactic than substantial.


More information on these can be obtained with a browse through the
"Catalog of compilers, intepreters, ..." by David Sharnoff that has just
been reposted in this same newsgroup.


> [If you really want to write a C interpreter, you've assigned yourself a
> rather large task. ...


Actually, amazingly enough, a freware C interpreter exists; it is just a
part of the UPS debugger written by some cool guy at UKC. UPS is available
by anon FTP from most X sites, and on many CDROMs. There are other C
(usually a susbset) intepreters mentioned in the Catalog, but I don't know
them. Free sw is amazing.
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