Writing Your Own Programming Language
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Writing Your Own Programming Language
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Re: Writing Your Own Programming Language
#2Why do bloggers focus on lexing and parsing? These things should not take up 80% of the article about creating a programming language.
This fascination with "how" to build something, without considering "what" and "why", seems to be an issue that gets repeated time after time again.
Re: Writing Your Own Programming Language
#3Honest question: why do tutorials in this topic seem to always use functional languages/syntax as examples? Our compilers class at MST had us re-implement a lisp compiler, but didn't touch on why we used lisp specifically (other than the professor liking it; we were a largely C++ school). Do they think functional languages are simpler / less complex / easier to understand? Is there something inherently easier to implementing a functional language instead of something more imperative?
Re: Writing Your Own Programming Language
#4Why do bloggers focus on lexing and parsing? These things should not take up 80% of the article about creating a programming language. This fascination with "how" to build something, without considering "what" and "why", seems to be an issue that gets repeated time after time again.
I found http://hokstad.com/compiler a lot easier to understand than any other compiler tutorial I've seen. Writing a compiler the way you'd write any other program. It does end up with e.g. a distinct parser, but only when the reasons that might be a good idea become apparent.
Re: Writing Your Own Programming Language
#5https://raw.githubusercontent.com/marciok/Mu/master/WriteYou...
(Beavis and Butthead laugh)
Re: Writing Your Own Programming Language
#6Why do bloggers focus on lexing and parsing? These things should not take up 80% of the article about creating a programming language. This fascination with "how" to build something, without considering "what" and "why", seems to be an issue that gets repeated time after time again.
How about making your comment useful by enlightening the community as to the relative unimportance of these aspects of contemporary PL design, and suggest some other aspects for would-be designers to focus on instead? Just imagine: you could even link to resources for the latter!
Re: Writing Your Own Programming Language
#7Honest question: why do tutorials in this topic seem to always use functional languages/syntax as examples? Our compilers class at MST had us re-implement a lisp compiler, but didn't touch on why we used lisp specifically (other than the professor liking it; we were a largely C++ school). Do they think functional languages are simpler / less complex / easier to understand? Is there something inherently easier to impl…
Not having to deal with a statement/expression distinction makes it a lot easier. Functional languages often have a simpler syntax with fewer special cases. (Though there are other languages like this e.g. Smalltalk)
Re: Writing Your Own Programming Language
#8Honest question: why do tutorials in this topic seem to always use functional languages/syntax as examples? Our compilers class at MST had us re-implement a lisp compiler, but didn't touch on why we used lisp specifically (other than the professor liking it; we were a largely C++ school). Do they think functional languages are simpler / less complex / easier to understand? Is there something inherently easier to impl…
It isn't really meaningful to call a language like this functional or imperative. It's far too simple. If you're asking about the s-expressions specifically, they are very easy to parse for the same reason they are easy to read: you don't need any precedence rules. Writing interpreters in Lisp languages for Lisp languages also has a long history.
Re: Writing Your Own Programming Language
#9Honest question: why do tutorials in this topic seem to always use functional languages/syntax as examples? Our compilers class at MST had us re-implement a lisp compiler, but didn't touch on why we used lisp specifically (other than the professor liking it; we were a largely C++ school). Do they think functional languages are simpler / less complex / easier to understand? Is there something inherently easier to impl…
I think you're asking the right questions.
I would assume that your class targeted Lisp because SICP uses it. While that is a great resource, it is light on details when it comes to the end game: runtime. If you are developing a language today and you aren't considering runtime, then you are just writing macros.
Lexing, and parsing are not trivial tasks, but powerful tooling already exists for these. Compiling means knowing how to translate your language into something that executes, and I would say "must execute well". I'm in favor of hobbies (fun) and exploration (growth), but if you are "perfecting" steps 1&2 and haven't yet considered step 3, then maybe it is time to support another language community rather than develop something on your own.
Re: Writing Your Own Programming Language
#10Why do bloggers focus on lexing and parsing? These things should not take up 80% of the article about creating a programming language. This fascination with "how" to build something, without considering "what" and "why", seems to be an issue that gets repeated time after time again.
What is the problem there? I'm confused by your comment