C preprocessing

[John Baldwin]

In article <60134 at iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bomgard at iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
 (Tim Bomgardner) writes [in response to my posting]:

>
>Boy, give 'em lex and yacc and tell 'em about LALR(1) and they're ready
>for the big time.  I've produced a compiler or two.  I don't know about
>the "language designers" here, but my parsers have no difficulty at all
>with this sort of grammer.  You wanna know what's hard?  The parser I'm
>working on right now recognizes graphics.
>

Please remember (as I step into the flame-retardant suit), that not all
of us on the net are familiar with each other's proficiency levels
with respect to different aspects of computer science.  I *said* I
was no compiler expert!  (I've got "parts of a compiler" lying about
my den at home; right now it doesn't compile *anything*.  Label me 'novice'.)

Your previous postings [that is, the subset I am familiar with]
would lead me to believe that you were very proficient in programming
in general, but might not have much/any exposure to compilers.

I hope you haven't taken my (original) comments as an affront.
They were never meant to be.


>}#2  Why can't the compiler "catch" the fact that what was meant (above)
>}    isn't what was said?
>}
>}Because a compiler's job is to translate what was *said*.  The only
>}analysis the compiler is required to perform is whatever is germane
>}to that task.
>
>Says you.  In the case of C, I agree.  But I'm not really talking about
>C anymore.

Yes, says me.  In the case of C and other block-structured, procedurally-
oriented languages only.  At least I *thought* that's what we were
originally talking about.         :-}


>
>}#3   Wouldn't it be nice if the compiler would do what I meant, instead
>}     of what I said?
>}

BTW, I'm toying with a language/concept I call DWIRM...
      Do
      What
      I
      Really
      Meant!     :-)



>Fortran gave us data abstraction.  Block structured languages gave us
>control abstraction.  What I'm looking for now I'll call structure
>abstraction.  When I design something, I use little diagrams and pictures
>and sometimes raw C code as well.  I then take all that and translate it
>into C.  My goal is to have the computer do that for me.  I really don't
>care about a nobel prize that much (my ideas aren't really that original),
>but I WILL be accepting VISA and Mastercard.

Now THAT sounds interesting.  Do it right, and you WILL be accepting VISA
and MasterCard.

How about AMEX?

-- 
John T. Baldwin                     | "Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt!"
Search Technology, Inc.             | (A plague on those who said our good
johnb%srchtec.uucp at mathcs.emory.edu |  things before we did!)