On 2012-06-05 11:02, foobar wrote:
This argument was raised before. That "heap of problems" is as vague as
the proposed AST system(s).
As far as I can tell, that heap of problems is mainly about making it
harder to make internal breaking changes since the compiler is no longer
a black box.
Now, I'd argue that having a stable API for those compiler internals in
needed anyway. Besides the obvious benefits of a more modular design
that better encapsulates the different layers of the compilation
process, it allows us to implement a compiler as a set of libraries
which benefits the tool ecosystem, IDEs, text-editors, lint tools, etc.
Thools which could reuse subsets of these libraries (e.g. think of
Clang's design and how it allowed for the vim auto-complete plugin).
Even _without_ the AST macros I think it's a worthy goal to pursuit, AST
macros simply make the outcome that much sweeter.
I couldn't agree more.
--
/Jacob Carlborg
