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| From | "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.c |
| Subject | Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language |
| Date | 2016-11-14 00:01 +0800 |
| Organization | Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong |
| Message-ID | <o0a2o7$j0o$3@dont-email.me> (permalink) |
| References | (1 earlier) <o09ikt$srt$2@dont-email.me> <o09jfs$uoc$4@dont-email.me> <o09n3i$b25$1@dont-email.me> <o09n7h$c0i$1@dont-email.me> <ec02f6d7-55e4-421f-9873-9e1128b534a9@googlegroups.com> |
On 13/11/2016 11:42 PM, jameskuyper@verizon.net wrote:
>
> 1. Define what measure of the syntax you want to minimize.
>
> 2. Define the range of possible syntaxes that you want to minimize over. For
> any given version of C, the syntax is describe by two official grammars, the
> lexical grammar and the phrase structure grammar, which are summarized in Annex
> A. In addition, many of C's constraints are syntactic rather than semantic:
> they could have been expressed as grammar rules rather than as constraints, at
> the cost of making the grammar far more complex. Given syntax rules defined in
> that manner, how would you determine if one syntax is more minimal than another?
>
> The standard's summary of that grammar in Annex A is complete and has very
> little in the way of wasted words - if it isn't precisely the smallest complete
> grammar that could be used to define the language, it probably comes close. Of
> all the standard grammars for C, the one that's smallest was probably the one
> for the oldest version of C, since each version added many more new features
> than it removed. Is that what you're looking for?
>
> Are you thinking about minimize over a range of simplified versions of C? Would
> a grammar that has been simplified so far that the only program that it can
> actually describe is "int main() {}" be acceptable? If so, that grammar is
> probably the minimal one that could, by an extreme stretch of the imagination,
> be described as a simplified C grammar. If that's too simplified, then you need
> to specify constraints on how far the simplification may go.
>
> 3. Explain why you're interested in this minimum syntax. I think one of the key
> reasons BartC is accusing you of being a bot is he can't imagine why a human
> would care about this topic, and I have to agree. If you do care, explain why.
>
For teaching purposes, do you need complete and full C syntax? DO you
need a sophiscated compiler?
You might be right, I might have asked the wrong question because of my
poor English ability and fluency. :)
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Minimum amount of syntax for C language "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-11-13 18:56 +0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-11-13 11:26 +0000
[OT] "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-11-13 19:41 +0800
Re: [OT] BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-11-13 12:42 +0000
Minimum amount of syntax for C language "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-11-13 20:45 +0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language jameskuyper@verizon.net - 2016-11-13 07:42 -0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-11-14 00:01 +0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language jameskuyper@verizon.net - 2016-11-13 10:00 -0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2016-11-13 13:16 -0600
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-11-13 19:28 +0000
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language Thiago Adams <thiago.adams@gmail.com> - 2016-11-14 08:10 -0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language John Bode <jfbode1029@gmail.com> - 2016-11-14 12:34 -0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2016-11-16 10:22 -0600
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language supercat@casperkitty.com - 2016-11-16 08:33 -0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-11-17 22:11 +0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-11-17 16:30 +0000
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2016-11-18 01:05 +0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language John Bode <jfbode1029@gmail.com> - 2016-11-17 09:03 -0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-11-17 13:58 -0500
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-11-17 19:10 +0000
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2016-11-17 17:41 -0500
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language Thiago Adams <thiago.adams@gmail.com> - 2016-11-17 11:03 -0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2016-11-17 11:56 -0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-11-17 12:17 -0800
Re: Minimum amount of syntax for C language Thiago Adams <thiago.adams@gmail.com> - 2016-11-17 12:21 -0800
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