Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 16:02:36 -0800 From: David Schultz <dschultz@uclink.Berkeley.EDU> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Cliff Sarginson <clsn@raggedclown.net>, FreeBSD Chat <FreeBSD-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: In the land of the blind a one eyed man becomes king Message-ID: <20030105000236.GB739@HAL9000.homeunix.com> In-Reply-To: <3E17535D.15E80093@mindspring.com> References: <200212312041.gBVKfr183480@hokkshideh2.jetcafe.org> <3E120659.3D60EB30@mindspring.com> <20030101140530.GA11468@raggedclown.net> <4.3.2.7.2.20030104112345.02a48b70@localhost> <20030104201542.GA10588@raggedclown.net> <3E17535D.15E80093@mindspring.com>
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Thus spake Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>: > OK, let me correct my statement: the difficulty of writing a > compiler is actually irrelevent to the discussion for any trained > computer scientist. Writing a compiler is not hard. I've done one with a complete lexer, parser, type checker, code generator, and good error handling in under 900 lines of LISP. (Not surprisingly, the professor was Richard Fateman. :-) But writing a *good* compiler is hard. Getting one to optimize well for a dozen target architectures and handle every little detail of the C language plus a few reasonable extensions takes a heck of a lot of gruntwork. It's not nearly as simple as saying, ``Okay, we're going to take a break from kernel hacking for a week and write a non-GPL'd C/C++ compiler for FreeBSD.'' To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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