Are there "compiler generators"?

From	Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	Are there "compiler generators"?
Date	2022-05-28 22:27 +0000
Organization	Compilers Central
Message-ID	<22-05-054@comp.compilers> (permalink)

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Hi Folks,

There are lexer generators. Flex is a lexer generator.

There are parser generators. Bison is a parser generator.

Are there compiler generators?

Page 52 of the book "Crafting a Compiler with C" says this in the chapter
titled "Scanning--Theory and Practice":

Programming a scanner generator is an example of nonprocedural programming.
That is, unlike ordinary programming, which we call procedural, we do not tell
a scanner generator "how" do scan but simply "what" we want scanned. This is a
higher-level approach and in many ways a more natural one. Much recent
research in computer science is directed toward nonprocedural programming
styles. (Database query languages and Prolog, a "logic" programming language,
are nonprocedural.) Nonprocedural programming is most successful in limited
domains, such as scanning, where the range of implementation decisions that
must be automatically made is limited. Nonetheless, a long-standing (and as
yet unrealized) goal of computer scientists is to generate an entire compiler
from a specification of the properties of the source language and target
computer.

That was written in 1991. Is it still true in 2022--there are no compiler
generators?

/Roger
[There are certainly programs that will generate a combined lexer and parser
but there's a lot more to a compiler. -John]

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Are there "compiler generators"? Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org> - 2022-05-28 22:27 +0000
  Re: Are there "compiler generators"? "Robin Vowels" <robin51@dodo.com.au> - 2022-05-29 13:34 +1000
  Re: Are there "compiler generators"? Jan Ziak <0xe2.0x9a.0x9b@gmail.com> - 2022-05-28 23:52 -0700
  Re: Are there "compiler generators"? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2022-05-29 06:45 +0000
  Re: Are there "compiler generators"? Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2022-05-29 09:14 +0000
    Re: Are there "compiler generators"? Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2022-05-30 14:53 +0200
      Re: Are there "compiler generators"? Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2022-05-31 12:57 +0200
        Re: Are there "compiler generators"? gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2022-05-31 16:55 -0700
          RE: Are there compiler generators? Christopher F Clark <christopher.f.clark@compiler-resources.com> - 2022-06-01 14:07 +0300
  Re: Are there "compiler generators"? Martin Ward <martin@gkc.org.uk> - 2022-05-29 12:00 +0100
    Re: Are there "compiler generators"? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2022-05-30 07:35 +0000
  Re: Are there "compiler generators"? Fernando <pronesto@gmail.com> - 2022-05-29 05:00 -0700
  Re: Are there "compiler generators"? gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2022-05-29 23:29 -0700
    Re: Are there "compiler generators"? mac <acolvin@efunct.com> - 2022-06-09 14:12 +0000
  Re: Are there "compiler generators"? Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2022-05-30 20:20 +0000

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