On 2013-12-04 19:55, Dmitry Olshansky wrote:
I'll just add a bit of my experience on this.
The coolest side of things is that you get to code a mini-compiler that
has a very nice backend - D code. More then that you get optimizer and
such for free. Then you only do the fun stuff - your frontend, and if it
wasn't for CTFE speed/stability the experience is _very_ pleasant.
With AST macros it would be the same thing, just that you don't need to
code the mini-compiler. It's already done for you.
Compare that with writing a fully fledged JIT compiler for say, regex
patterns. Don't forget to account that you'd need to port it to X
architectures times Y OS ABIs and generate code of at least moderate
quality.
JIT would have the benefit of being usable for patterns not known ahead
of time though.
AST macros would generate a new AST, no need to create a JIT compiler.
The advantage of AST macros is that the compiler doesn't need to re-lex
and re-parse the result.
--
/Jacob Carlborg
