HTML documentation generator and cross reference

Yoshiki Ohshima Yoshiki.Ohshima at acm.org
Sun Dec 5 08:38:35 UTC 2004


  Aaron,

> >  If you learn about how to use Squeak's explorer, you can
> > traverse the parse tree of method and check each node, etc.  This live
> > experiment is the best way to "get the larger picture", I think.
> 
> Is that really necessary ? The parser is not really that interesting or 
> complex a problem domain. The System Compiler and VM are really the areas I 
> want to study. I am interested to looking at SmaCC at some point when I am 
> ready for it though.

  I thought that you're referring to Compiler and friends in the
'System-Compiler' system category...  If so, it does involve the parse
tree, because the Compiler here is the translator from the code you
type to the objects and the sequence of Squeak bytecode.  Also,
CCodeGenerator is similar kind; which translates the parse tree to
equivalent C code.

  You could just take a look at the InterpreterSimulator, but it will
give you a hard time if you don't know the Squeak object types, etc.,
etc.

  On the other hand, the C-compiled VM can be seen as a stack machine
and 256-way switch surrounded by "while (true) {}".  Reading the Back
to the Future paper, nuBlue book, the VM's generated C code, and
corresponding Squeak code has all important info about the stack
organization, object format, etc. etc.

-- Yoshiki



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