[antlr-interest] De-emphasizing tree grammars?

[Scott Stanchfield]

I get suspicious of any book that has the word "rules" in its title that I
didn't write...
-- Scott

----------------------------------------
Scott Stanchfield
http://javadude.com


On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Kyle Ferrio <kferrio at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Jason,
>
> Ter has convinced me that I have nothing to fear from v4 and that it
> actually will make life easier for both target maintainers and people using
> multiple targets.
>
> By pseudo-target, I mean an intermediate representation for which no
> compiler or VM exists but which is easily machine-translated into any
> target language.  In the past, it seemed to me (and I may be wrong) that
> keeping a target in sync with antlr development (i.e. the prodigious pace
> of Ter) could be a full-time job and that this might explain why some
> targets appeared to lag.  Of course there might be other reasons.  Having a
> stable pseudo target would enable (among other things omitted here for
> brevity) the  antlr core and targets to evolve in parallel rather than
> sequentially.  It's just another decoupling.  Again, based on Ter's
> remarks, I think v4 will improve the situation without the added
> complexity.
>
> A software book written by economists?  I must see this, if only to learn
> whether it is better than an economics book written by software engineers!
>
> Kyle
>  On Dec 26, 2011 1:08 PM, "Jason Osgood" <jason at jasonosgood.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi Kyle Ferrio.
> >
> >
> > > A well defined Neutral Implementation Pattern Language, viz. a
> > > pseudo-target could be a useful compromise with the following benefits:
> > (1)
> > > enabling target-agnostic validation; (2) accelerating simultaneous,
> > > synchronous development of both antlr and targets (a major problem
> > > currently imho) by providing a thin shim targeted by antlr and known in
> > > advance by authors of target generators; and (3) promoting reusuability
> > and
> > > readability of grammars via abstraction of the implementation.
> >
> > I don't understand what a pseudo-target is. Do you have an example?
> >
> > As for your stated benefits, I agree enthusiastically. Modularity
> > through interfaces is power.
> >
> > The book "Design Rules", written by two economists, is the most
> > important software architecture book I've read to date.
> >
> > http://www.google.com/search?q=design+rules+power+of+modularity
> >
> > It sometimes seems that my entire career has been figuring out ways to
> > decouple stuff. :)
> >
> >
> > Cheers, Jason
> >
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