Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
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Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
1–10 of 107 posts
Re: Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
#2isn't rust kind of a nonstarter for cfg representations which are irreducibly cyclic? yes, one can use the pointers are array-indices thing, but ..
Re: Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
#3The article has fair points, but after trying OCaml and Rust... I chose Rust. Without going into huge amounts of detail, a compiler is more than simply a parser/ast/code generator and there are other aspects to consider such as the richness of the ecosystem, editor support, etc. Also, I suspect the author is more familiar with OCaml than Rust as you wouldn't typically box everything but likely use an arena for the AST. In the same way, I am more familiar with Rust than OCaml, so some of the warts I observed may be to lack of familiarity. As such I suspect the authors perspective is biased...as is mine. Nothing wrong with that.
Re: Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
#4I suggest TypeScript.
Re: Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
#5The article has fair points, but after trying OCaml and Rust... I chose Rust. Without going into huge amounts of detail, a compiler is more than simply a parser/ast/code generator and there are other aspects to consider such as the richness of the ecosystem, editor support, etc. Also, I suspect the author is more familiar with OCaml than Rust as you wouldn't typically box everything but likely use an arena for the AS…
Can you write an equivalent piece of code that shows why Rust wins here with more familiarity and leveraging the ecosystem? With compilers I don't think there is a huge amount of using the ecosystem. I think what TFA does is a good case study in trying to be objective: write it both ways and compare.
Re: Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
#6[dead]
Re: Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
#7The article has fair points, but after trying OCaml and Rust... I chose Rust. Without going into huge amounts of detail, a compiler is more than simply a parser/ast/code generator and there are other aspects to consider such as the richness of the ecosystem, editor support, etc. Also, I suspect the author is more familiar with OCaml than Rust as you wouldn't typically box everything but likely use an arena for the AS…
Can you write an equivalent piece of code that shows why Rust wins here with more familiarity and leveraging the ecosystem? With compilers I don't think there is a huge amount of using the ecosystem. I think what TFA does is a good case study in trying to be objective: write it both ways and compare.
I'm just saying a compiler is a program, and while the more important things are heavy algorithm related, supporting libraries like those for error handling, etc. all still matter and add up. No problem if you disagree - just my perspective. This isn't so much an objective thing as it is a personal opinion.
Re: Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
#8Why does it seem like I'm hearing about OCaml all the time now? It could just be frequency bias but it wasn't that long ago that I'd never heard of it and now it seems to be getting a lot of attention online.
Re: Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
#9I don't quite follow the algorithm here, but I'm not sure the `gensym` Rust implementation works as expected. `RefCell::clone` does not return a copy of the reference; it returns a new `RefCell` with the current `RefCell`'s value, resulting in duplicate IDs. However, a `RefCell` isn't even necessary here, since a `Cell` would do just fine - and you'd pass around a reference to that `Cell` instead of cloning it.
It does feel like the code was ported as-is to Rust, and only adjusted slightly to compile; there are going to be pain points as a result of this process. I suspect this is the source of some of the author's complaints, especially given:
> Although it provides us with a greater sense of how the code is executing, it brings very little value to the algorithm itself.
Rust is, in general, for people who find value in having that information; it is okay to not want to have to worry about ownership, borrowing, safety, etc., but it seems a bit odd to complain about this when that's what Rust is for? If you want to focus on just the algorithm, and not how it's executing, then OCaml is definitely a valid choice.
However, the point about GADTs - can Rust's recently-stabilized GATs not work in the same way? Though I will admit that Rust's GATs don't seem nearly as powerful as OCaml's GADTs in this regard.
Re: Compiler Development: Rust or OCaml?
#10The article has fair points, but after trying OCaml and Rust... I chose Rust. Without going into huge amounts of detail, a compiler is more than simply a parser/ast/code generator and there are other aspects to consider such as the richness of the ecosystem, editor support, etc. Also, I suspect the author is more familiar with OCaml than Rust as you wouldn't typically box everything but likely use an arena for the AS…
I've been seriously at it with Rust for about six months now and really loving it. What do you mean by "use an arena for the AST?" What is an arena in this context?