Path: csiph.com!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!news.misty.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED.news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: Jon Chesterfield Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: Compilation Quotient (CQ): A Metric for the Compilation Hardness of Programming Languages Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2024 19:20:08 +0100 Organization: Compilers Central Sender: johnl%iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <24-06-005@comp.compilers> References: <24-06-003@comp.compilers> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Injection-Info: gal.iecc.com; posting-host="news.iecc.com:2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970"; logging-data="99152"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@iecc.com" Keywords: parse, practice Posted-Date: 10 Jun 2024 16:42:51 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com In-Reply-To: <24-06-003@comp.compilers> Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:3573 Curious paper, thank you. The probability that a program generated by the grammar fails semantic analysis does seem an interesting value. Estimating it by sampling from a property based tester seems reasonable too. I don't think this says anything meaningful about the experience of programming in one of these as grammar and sema errors are both reported early. It probably does indicate cases that a given language could detect earlier by changing their grammar. Jon [I had two other thoughts. One was that you can tell C was written when parsing was still hard enough that you didn't want to bulk the parsers up with semantic stuff. The other was that in the languages where it is hard to write a valid problem, how much more likely is it that the program actually works once you get it to compile? -John]