Re: Using Prolog to Compile Things

"Nick Roberts" <nickroberts@callnetuk.com> writes:
> [...] Second, I was actually seriously proposing that the compiler
> itself be written in Prolog (rather than a compiler compiler). My
> long term plan is, I think, to: (a) write a Prolog interpreter in
> Ada; (b) write an optimising Ada compiler in Prolog; (c) recompile
> the Prolog interpreter (to get a faster Prolog interpreter); (d)
> write a Prolog compiler in Prolog, and compile the Ada compiler
> (thus getting a faster Ada compiler); (e) convert the speed-critical
> parts (or maybe all) of the Ada compiler into Ada (thus getting an
> even faster Ada compiler). [...]


If you consider putting Ada in the loop and are interested mainly in
backend optimization issues, I suggest you choose a subset of the
language since writing a front-end able to reach production quality
for the full Ada 95 language is not a simple task, the estimate of 50
man years is floating around (and it's not including back-end work
here).


A practical already well defined subset is Spark 95, see the book
"High Integrity Ada : The Spark Approach" by John Barnes,
Addison-Wesley Pub Co; ISBN: 0201175177. You might want to add dynamic
allocation and a few other gizmo so you can program your compiler
easily with it (note that the GNU Ada compiler has its front end
written in Ada, and started with a small subset so as to be able to
bootstrap as early as possible and abandon the Ada 83 commercial
compiler used at the beginning of the project ;-).


--LG

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