Re: Editing/storing syntax trees

Preston Briggs <preston@tera.com> wrote:
] I disagree. ASCII source is actually a fine representation, small and
] convenient. Syntax trees, on disk, are bulky and inconvenient.


But "on disk" might be in the same address space if you have a SASOS coupled
with a persistent object store, in which case you don't care that much about
"bulkyness".


] Separate your concerns. Use a single, good editor for all your
] programming languages, and individual compilers for each language.
] Otherwise, you get stuck using/writing a new editor for each new
] language. You might be able to make them all feel the same, but it's
] still a major multiplication of your programming effort.
]
] If you want general access to a syntax tree, say for use by several
] different tools, write a single scanner-parser combination that builds
] a tree form from the source form; but please don't multiply your editors.


I agree that using a syntax tree is not currently a practical
alternative. But I think it would be the right thing *if* you had a
good structure editor which would be used for editing any object
(node of the syntax tree, for instance).


The description of the syntax that should be used to display an
object could be embedded in its class, for instance (so the same
editor canbe used to edit any language).


In systems such as unix, most tools are designed to work with text,
so it's a pain to deal with anything else than text. But if every
tool would be designed to deal with objects, ...




Stefan
--

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