[antlr-interest] Re: ANTLR 3.0 question about common actions

[Terence Parr]

On Jul 28, 2004, at 3:58 PM, iank at bearcave.com wrote:

>
>> I think this is a worthy goal.  The thing I don't like about it is
>> that you have to come up with a new psuedo-language and your users
>> have to learn it.
>
>   I also have the impression that we are talking about something like
>   a pseudo-language.

Hi Ian,

Well, although

a = b;

and

f();

are essentially identical in all languages most people will run into, 
I'm not talking about this really.  I mean that rather than make you 
type in an action to build a node, ANTLR allows #[...] to create 
outside an action etc....  Currently we have parse the actions to pull 
these out.  Loring is about to jump in here so I'll be brief ;)

Anyway, I would allow syntax for you to say what properties trees 
should have and then the code generator would pull out the AST template 
or something and stick that stuff in while generating code.  Or 
subclass what AST class you told it to and added the fields.  
Otherwise, the "spec" is in the documentation for each target rather 
than in the code generator and the template files.

>   My concern here is that this is an example of feture creep.  The
>   result of feature creep can be to kill off a new version or result
>   in a less reliable version.

Yes, Fred Brooks' "second system effect" is always clearly in my mind.  
That's for the reminder!

Ter
--
CS Professor & Grad Director, University of San Francisco
Creator, ANTLR Parser Generator, http://www.antlr.org
Cofounder, http://www.jguru.com
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