RE: extending a grammar

I disagree that extensible languages ultimately lead to 'write-only'
programs. It is powerful tool, and as with any powerful tool you can
cut your fingers. But if you use it with care, it is useful for many
purposes. In my opinion, if you make language extension tools harder
to use that mere writing a pair of lines, i.e. separate extension
design and usage phases, you'll get extension mechanism more safe and
easy to use. I'd like to have small core language with clean design
(e.g. Oberon) and standard mechanism to extend it.


Literature proves that it is possible. Your example with SQL
statements embedded in host language, particularly, is described in
excellent paper of Luca Cardelli from DEC SRC. URL is:
http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/personal/luca/Papers.html


Article name is: "Extensible Syntax with Lexical Scoping" I started to
devise something like this when found the paper describing the very
idea I have. Oops... By the way, the mentioned URL and DEC SRC as
well is unvaluable repository of good ideas.


Best regards,
Victor.
--

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.