Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back

From	BartC <bc@freeuk.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back
Date	2016-07-06 17:30 +0100
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<nljbnn$1qa$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(10 earlier) <nlh8b0$7fh$1@dont-email.me> <6b7372f3-8e4a-41d4-89e2-09937fac7e85@googlegroups.com> <nlij0v$sbd$1@dont-email.me> <c06e9006-b10b-4c67-8f1c-4173219c1ba5@googlegroups.com> <nlj0m5$bdg$1@dont-email.me>

Show all headers | View raw

On 06/07/2016 14:22, David Brown wrote:
> On 06/07/16 11:49, Malcolm McLean wrote:

>> However I would implement the compiler in a  conservative subset of ANSI C and
>> output a similarly conservative subset. That gives the project maximum chance of
>> longevity and usefulness.
>>
>
> /You/ might choose to do that - but it would be a rather silly choice in
> this case.  C is a poor choice of language for writing a compiler these
> days - at least for a first draft.

I'd been writing my compilers in dynamic, interpreted languages.

But now I'm converting at least one of them into my static, C-class 
language. There are a lot of advantages including:

* Very much faster speed (I'd forgotten compilers could be this fast)

* Can be distributed as standard C (as my language is not standard).
   (Python is standard, but a large, sprawling Python installation is
   needed, and the application itself will be multiple modules.)

* A C version is also much easier to distribute as a single binary
   executable.

One more advantage can appreciated if, for example, you write the 
compiler in Python, but are also responsible for the Python interpreter, 
and that interpreter is written in the language whose compiler you are 
writing in Python!

Then you can get a peculiar set of circular but offset dependencies 
(overlaps between different generations), that vanish if using a 
language that compiles straight to native code.

> A language that has good support for
> strings, parsing, dictionaries, and the like would make more sense.

You don't really need all that; compilers aren't that complicated. By 
parsing support I assume you mean a regular expression library. But 
that's a bit of a cop-out way of writing a parser.

Such features can also be inefficient, on top of using an interpreted 
language. Earlier this year I compared a tokeniser I'd written in 
Python, using low-level character-at-a-time methods, to one written in 
Python using regular expressions.

My tokeniser was faster! Despite the character-at-a-time processing 
presumably being done by native code libraries, not Python byte-code.

-- 
Bartc

Thread

Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-29 10:36 -0700
  Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back supercat@casperkitty.com - 2016-06-29 16:04 -0700
    Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-29 16:30 -0700
      Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2016-06-29 19:52 -0700
        Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-06-30 13:00 +0100
          Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-30 05:42 -0700
            Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-06-30 18:11 +0100
              Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-30 10:30 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-06-30 19:54 +0100
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-30 12:31 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2016-07-01 07:59 +1200
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2016-06-30 21:31 +0100
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-30 14:19 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-30 14:31 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-06-30 21:18 +0100
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-30 14:26 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-06-30 22:44 +0100
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-30 17:23 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-07-05 21:38 +0200
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2016-07-05 21:05 +0100
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-07-05 13:32 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-07-05 23:20 +0200
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-07-05 14:25 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-07-05 16:14 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-07-06 11:18 +0200
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-07-06 03:36 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-07-05 16:23 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-07-06 11:29 +0200
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2016-07-06 02:49 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-07-06 05:18 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-07-06 13:57 +0100
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-07-06 06:24 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-07-06 15:22 +0200
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-07-06 07:12 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2016-07-06 08:08 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back supercat@casperkitty.com - 2016-07-06 09:00 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2016-07-07 08:01 +1200
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back supercat@casperkitty.com - 2016-07-06 13:30 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-07-06 17:30 +0100
    Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-06-30 00:39 +0100
      Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back jacobnavia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> - 2016-06-30 22:08 +0200
  Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back gordonb.h5sc5@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) - 2016-06-29 20:52 -0500
    Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-29 19:00 -0700
      Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2016-06-30 16:06 +1200
        Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2016-06-30 02:48 -0700
          Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2016-06-30 23:25 +1200
            Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2016-06-30 04:39 -0700
              Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back jacobnavia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> - 2016-06-30 21:50 +0200
            Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-06-30 06:49 -0700
              Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back jacobnavia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> - 2016-06-30 22:23 +0200
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-07-04 10:43 -0700
                Vaporware (Was: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke ...) gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2016-07-04 17:59 +0000
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Randy Howard <rhoward.mx@EverybodyUsesIt.com> - 2016-07-06 12:38 -0500
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back "Rick C. Hodgin" <rick.c.hodgin@gmail.com> - 2016-07-06 11:38 -0700
          Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-06-30 19:51 +0100
            Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back jacobnavia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> - 2016-06-30 21:59 +0200
              Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2016-07-01 01:05 -0700
        Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-06-30 11:32 +0100
          Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2016-06-30 23:23 +1200
            Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-06-30 14:28 +0100
              Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back supercat@casperkitty.com - 2016-06-30 08:24 -0700
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-06-30 16:56 +0100
              Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back jacobnavia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> - 2016-06-30 22:17 +0200
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-06-30 22:22 +0100
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back jacobnavia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> - 2016-07-01 08:25 +0200
                Re: Forward declarations ... the straw that broke the camel's back BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-07-01 12:09 +0100

csiph-web