[Newcompiler] Status of the NewCompiler

[Philippe Marschall]

2007/4/1, Marcus Denker <denker at iam.unibe.ch>:
> Hello,
>
> Last summer/fall, Mathieu Suen worked (as part of the ESUG
> SummerTalk) on the NewCompiler framework.
>
> He added
>         -> Support for literalVariable read/write bytecode
>         -> Human readable Error Messages for the Parser that say more then
> "SmaCCParserError".
>         -> Support for Squeak 3.9 Pragmas / A solution for parsing
> primitives (which used the old parser with
>               nobody realizing it... ;-) )
>          -> An experiment for a Smalltalk Scripting Language's parser
> (Saphire)
>         -> Many of smaller and larger bugfixes and improvements
         -> FFI support (right?)

Philippe

> Thanks a lot!
>
> The NewCompiler framework has been used in many projects, both at SCG
> and elsewhere.
>
> Next things on the TODO
> ====================
>
> Bugs
> -------
>
> - variables in the debugger seem to be not work correctly when
> selecting them for a doit / inspect it.
> - in the debugger make "debug it" work. See ParagraphEditor>>#debugIt.
>         - fix debugIt to not compile a #doit method but use the same
> mechanism as #doIt.
> - instVar vs. Field in IRBuilder. Something is very  not nice here.
> We should provide both concepts.
> - Fix Compiler IR-->RBNode decompile
> - Make to Block primitives work for BlockClosure so that exceptions
> (#ifCurtailed:, ...) work
>
> Enhancements
> --------------
>
> - Integrate RB with Newcompiler Parser.
>         -- step one: Put Parser into it's own package (NewParser)... or the
> AST package
>         -- step two: remove RBParser, check/ fix RefactoringEngine
> -  work-around for bytecode limitations (jump offsett, number of
> temps, number of literals ...) in IRBuilder
>     (see http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2006-
> February/100691.html)
> - Look at optimizing the Closures generated by the compiler. VM
> hacking included.
> - VMmaker code generator should use RB AST
>
>
> Documentation
> ------------
> - We need websites for AST, RB, SmaCC, NewCompiler
>         -- Write Hitchhikers Guide to the New Compiler:
>            http://www.whysmalltalk.com/articles/bykov/HitchHiker.htm
>            But then, these examples are even simpler to realise with
> Persphone/Geppetto aka. "The Reflectivity"...
>         -- IRBuilder: comments for public method, provide documentation for
> stack effects
> - Better bugtracker. At least I loose track of the Mantis bugs very
> easily. Can't it
>    generate emails to this list? Maybe use Roundup like Reflectivity
> and Moose?
>    (http://macamis.unibe.ch/trackers)
>
>
>