At 11:29 AM 12/9/98 -0800, you wrote:
>I'm glad that there are several others interested in CORBA ORBs for Squeak. The
>basic prerequisites that are currently still open issues include:
>	(1) Weak references and collections;
>	(2) First-class exceptions (including unwinding); and
>	(3) a ParserGenerator.
>
>(3) Is a bit complicated. The public domain TGen package is rather tightly
>bound to the VisualWorks Smalltalk compiler, which is diferent in many respects
>from Squeak's. I believe that getting a port of TGen is the next important step
>to getting a CORBA ORB ported.
>-- 
>stp

(i hate to go on record for saying this, but...) i am working on a
parser-generator in squeak. (that is, i've done most of the design and very
little of the implementation.) i have looked at T-Gen, and decided against
porting it because, well, because i didn't like it; but that doesn't mean
that it couldn't be done. as for T-Gen being tightly coupled to the VW
compiler, i don't know if this makes any difference, but i was using the
VisualAge port of T-Gen. (in fact, i had to do some work to get it to run in
v3.0). i don't know how closely related VA and VW's compilers are or what
was done in the VA port to mitigate the dependency. (i don't have VA loaded
on this machine right now, so i can't pull up quickly to take a look). 

T-Gen didn't like very complex grammars, and i couldn't figure out how to
write a tree builder class (this was in the VA port as well as using the
original VW code in VWNC [which needed a one-line fix to run]).

at any rate, i am not currently doing any work on my parser generator
(tentatively called TURK), so i suppose that is not much use to those out
there wanting to do CORBA stuff.

i do have a proposal, though. since there are so many of us with such good
ideas and so little time, i reccomend that we ask (politely, but with that
tone of voice that clearly indicate that we are not going to take no for an
answer) Mark G. to start lending us his undergrads as implementation slaves.
hey, i did my undergrad at Georgia Tech, and writing a parser-generator in
one quarter (oh wait, are they are semesters yet or does that start fall
99?) is just the kind of thing a Tech prof would say "well, i *guess* that
would be ok" to, implying that they were hoping for something a little more
"substantial" from you.

yes no?

dave

--
        j. david farber
    oo architect+mentor
numenor labs incorporated
in sunny boulder colorado
    dfarber at numenor.com
        www.numenor.com