An alternative FFI/Parser proposal

ncellier at ifrance.com ncellier at ifrance.com
Thu Aug 17 22:13:03 UTC 2006


Le Jeudi 17 Août 2006 19:38, Andreas Raab a écrit :
> > My feeling is that the Compiler maintainers should decide whether
> > or not the implementation should change, but in this case, it is
>
> > also their responsibility to provide a backward compatibility for
> > FFI users.
>
> On that one I disagree. In a system with an existing and accepted
> syntax, a compiler writer cannot just make up new syntax or change
> existing one to simplify the implementation. Otherwise it would be
> equally reasonable for one compiler writer to drop assignment from the
> parser to simplify it and for the next one to drop cascades for the same
> reason. Syntax changes have to be defined and agreed on elsewhere.

I wanted to speak of standardization of these present and future pragmas extensions which are apparently existing but still not that stable as i understood this thread...
Of course, I should have spoken of language design (goal) rather than Compiler's (implementation).
But this confusion was intentional, cause my feeling is that simplicity can also be a goal per se, especially if software is to evolve.

You perfectly know that historical design and backward compatibility will lead you through bypaths and indirect crooked ways... And maintainability dead ends might well prevent you to meet the crown. We have enough external constraints so as to avoid super imposing our own made. Just my experience and it's worth 2p.

But that's just generalities, and your solution indeed sounds a good way for resolving FFI modularity, regarding Compiler's interaction. How compatible is it with Lukas' ideas ? That is the question.

Nicolas



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