Talk:Compiler Construction/Introduction

language
i think it needs to be kept in mind that a truely good book on compilers will allow for languages that are not syntactically similar to C or Pascal (Lisp or Scheme come to mind). if we are sticking to a functional-C++ subset, it might be in everybody's best interests to a) list all aspects of ANSI C++ that will be excluded from this text, and B) formally define the aspects that will be used, for the programmer that has no knowledge of C++. --Whiteknight 05:54, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

regular expression syntax
it is interesting to me (although it is not necessarily a bad thing) to note that the regular expression syntax is all in Lex format. it might be beneficial to link to a Regular Expression primer, or to go into more detail about the regular expressions then can be found in the Flex Man pages. For that matter, if we are sticking to a de facto lex syntax, it might be beneficial to include state-conditionals in the introduction ( [form] [rules]). --Whiteknight 05:57, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Question
under Introducing Compilers and Interpreters / The compilation process, there is the following line of text:

"Some compiler-writing tools are available which can reduce this size, but adds corresponding dependencies."

Could someone clarify this? What is meant by "this size" and which are the "corresponding dependencies"?


 * It seems that it was just moved around a bit, I've placed it into a valid context now... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 06:33, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

The source language is always a higher-level language in comparison to machine code
I think *always* is an overkill. There could be a case where the source code is complicated but after all the optimizations is reduced to something simpler like say a complex formula that is substituted with a constant.


 * I disagree. The "source language" refers to a compilable language. Since machine code is the lowest level a language can be (at machine level), there is no possibility of compiling machine code (one can convert it and optimize it) but not compile it as it is already at the lowest degree. Even in conversions they will require that the source machine code be converted to a upper level before generating the target code, and any other "conversion" will not be labeled a compilation (as done by a compiler). --Panic (discuss • contribs) 02:50, 7 July 2011 (UTC)