Re: Compilers in six hours

>> 6. Actually doing a good job of machine-language generation nowadays is
>> probably nasty enough to justify a course in itself.


ssimmons@convex.com (Steve Simmons) writes:
>Hmmm.... I do believe that you are right. These subjects could better be
>handled in a second semester. However, most programs do not require a
>second semester of compilers (if offered at all). How many of those
>drawbacks are necessary for a CS student to understand??? Again, one
>importance of a compiler course is to understand what a compiler can do.
>It is really the job market that makes the final decision for most
>students. That is, would you hire a recent graduate if they could not
>explain the difference between local and static variables (intelligently)?
>Certainly not for a compiler job... maybe not even for a programming job.


Here we have two senior-grad level compiler courses, each running one
quarter. Let's call them the front-end (FE) course and the back-end (BE)
course. The attendance of the front-end course has always been good and
stable. For the back-end course, in a good year, we have 1/3 of the FE's
size; in a bad year, we may have 1/5 of the FE's size. a good percentage
of BE's population is EE students in the computer architecture area,
thanks to John Hennesy's teaching that a good architect probably needs to
know about code generation.


I don't blame the CS students who give rave review of the FE course but
choose to skip the BE course. I tried to convince them that the BE course
would help them to debug their program at low level, :-) but I can't seem
to even convince myself. I tend to think now the backend course should
probably discuss "source-to-source" translation, but then we run the risk
of losing both the CS students and the EE students :-)


Zhiyuan Li
CS Dept
U. Minnesota Twin City
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