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Anders Hejlsberg on Modern Compiler Construction (2016) [video]

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Re: Anders Hejlsberg on Modern Compiler Construction (2016) [video]

#21

Post by dave84 »

yesenadam wrote: post #13
W-Stool wrote: post #4

Turbo Pascal (which he authored) was quite the accomplishment back in the day - editor and compiler in 64K. Think about that for a minute.

That was my first language after BASIC - I loved it! I may be remembering this wrong, but it seemed virtually free - it was about $100 when its competitors and most software was $500+. That was in about 1986. The only way to get a manual was to buy the software. Another world..

I got a copy of Delphi 3 on the cover CD of PC Plus magazine in ‘99. Changed my 15 year old life.

Re: Anders Hejlsberg on Modern Compiler Construction (2016) [video]

#22

Post by acqq »

pjmlp wrote: post #14
zackbrown wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between Delphi, C#, and TypeScript the man has already had a storied and impactful career.

You forgot about the previous 10 year's of the man's career with Turbo Pascal.

Also his first work in Microsoft: Windows Foundation Classes (WFC) and Visual J++ development system.

Re: Anders Hejlsberg on Modern Compiler Construction (2016) [video]

#23

Post by badsectoracula »

yesenadam wrote: post #13
W-Stool wrote: post #4

Turbo Pascal (which he authored) was quite the accomplishment back in the day - editor and compiler in 64K. Think about that for a minute.

That was my first language after BASIC - I loved it! I may be remembering this wrong, but it seemed virtually free - it was about $100 when its competitors and most software was $500+. That was in about 1986. The only way to get a manual was to buy the software. Another world..

$99 was for Delphi up until version 5 for the cheapest version, which most likely explains why it was very popular among solo shareware developers.

Sadly that market was abandoned by Borland when they decided to go after enterprises and renamed themselves to Inprise and their prices skyrocketed after that.

Re: Anders Hejlsberg on Modern Compiler Construction (2016) [video]

#24

Post by chrisseaton »

pbiggar wrote: post #2

This is kinda how the compiler-stuff in Dark is written. Everything - the editor, semantic analysis, version control, execution engine, everything - all use the same data structures (the same abstract syntax tree). We use functional data structure everywhere and we do functional updates within the AST all the time; that's even how text entry in the editor updates the program.

> Everything - the editor, semantic analysis, version control, execution engine, everything - all use the same data structures (the same abstract syntax tree).

Is that data structure suitable for all those purposes though?

How do you do optimisations like GVN on an AS->T<-?

Re: Anders Hejlsberg on Modern Compiler Construction (2016) [video]

#26

Post by jakear »

tybit wrote: post #7

This is a great talk, I was struck by how similar some of the high level design goals are to LLVM https://www.aosabook.org/en/llvm.html I kind of hope Anders moves on from TypeScript soon, he’s done a fantastic job there considering the constraints of JavaScript, but I’d love to see him tackle something new.

He says he doesn’t think he’ll make another language. Which is a shame... I’d particularly like to see an actually good language for Azure(/cloud in general) resource management. There have been a bunch of attempts, but typically they’re just config files are their core.

Anyone know a declarative interface for describing services and their interactions that “compiles” to a complete cloud resource manager.

Re: Anders Hejlsberg on Modern Compiler Construction (2016) [video]

#27

Post by octref »

One take away for me was: Language designers & compiler writers today need to consider editor support as one of their goals.

On the top page there's another thread about rust-analyzer vs RLS. What Aleksey said[0] about RLS that "[RLS's] current architecture is not a good foundation for a perfect IDE long-term," feels similar to my coworker's conclusion in her effort to provide better editor support for PHP[1].

Parsers for compiling code into machine-executables vs parsers to serve LSP responses have different tradeoffs. For example, Anders mentioned TS parser need to have good error-recovery, can respond with completions/errors when one file changes inside a thousand-files-project. I vaguely remember TS had a goal to provide completions in TS's good editor support doesn't come free. I think one of the most under-appreciated achievement of TS is how it took editor support seriously and designed its compiler infrastructure to do it well. That's why I don't believe in those hot-new-web-languages that try to take over TS by designing a better type system. TS brought the average developer's expectation of a language to having fast completion, fast error reporting, editor autofix, F2 to rename and renaming-a-file-in-editor-to-update-all-references. It's 2020 and people aren't going back to write code like in Notepad.

[0]: https://ferrous-systems.com/blog/rust-analyzer-2019/

[1]: https://github.com/microsoft/tolerant-php-parser

---

EDIT: grammar.

Re: Anders Hejlsberg on Modern Compiler Construction (2016) [video]

#28

Post by oaiey »

tybit wrote: post #18
zackbrown wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between Delphi, C#, and TypeScript the man has already had a storied and impactful career.

Yes, he’s fantastically accomplished and capable, and I think he could do amazing things in a new area. I’d love to see him take lessons learned from C# for a language designed for WASM from the get go.

But wasm is an architecture. Like x86. The more interesting question is: what language is optimal for the use cases wasm serves. Games come into mind.

Re: Anders Hejlsberg on Modern Compiler Construction (2016) [video]

#30

Post by pjmlp »

yesenadam wrote: post #13
W-Stool wrote: post #4

Turbo Pascal (which he authored) was quite the accomplishment back in the day - editor and compiler in 64K. Think about that for a minute.

That was my first language after BASIC - I loved it! I may be remembering this wrong, but it seemed virtually free - it was about $100 when its competitors and most software was $500+. That was in about 1986. The only way to get a manual was to buy the software. Another world..

I paid 100 euros in today's money for Turbo Pascal for Windows 1.5, the last TP version before Delphi got released.

Likewise I paid 150 euros in today's money for Turbo C++ for Windows a couple of years later.

Borland products were king for small business, but then they decided to switch focus to corporate users, and the rest is history.

As side note, Delphi and C++ Builder are still quite loved in Germany, several companies keep using them, and there is at least an yearly conference.

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