Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!news.chainon-marquant.org!news-transit.tcx.org.uk!news.glorb.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: Christophe de Dinechin Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: Formally Defining a Programming Language Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:45:45 -0800 (PST) Organization: Compilers Central Lines: 31 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <11-11-047@comp.compilers> References: <11-11-039@comp.compilers> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.iecc.com X-Trace: leila.iecc.com 1322277216 41013 64.57.183.58 (26 Nov 2011 03:13:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@iecc.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2011 03:13:36 +0000 (UTC) Keywords: parse, theory Posted-Date: 25 Nov 2011 22:13:36 EST X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.compilers:349 On Nov 19, 2:45 pm, Seima Rao wrote: > Hi, > > n designing my own Programming Language and given the existence > of a lot of programming languages and an infinity of "knowhows" that > is the Internet, I resorted to adhoc adaptation methods that worked > incredibly well! I'd like to share a few thoughts here, based on my experience with XL (http://xlr.sf.net): - Don't design a language today based on 30-years-old templates. XL demonstrates that you can create a working, readable language with user-extensible syntax using a recursive descent parser which is less than 2000 lines of commented C++. - Keep it simple. The C++ specification weights hundreds of pages, and it's full of bugs and ambiguities. XL can be explained in twenty pages or so, see http://xlr.sourceforge.net/sites/default/files/XLRef.pdf. - Consider its applications, the ecosystem. Think about the library, about meta-programming, about domain-specific languages, about IDE integration (Eclipse, vi or emacs). > Can readers of this forum help direct to relevant materials wrt > Formalism that I can study to learn about Formalisms that will help in > deciding about my Programming Language? I assume you know about the Dragon Book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Dragon_Book)?