Compiler-compiler: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 05:38, 16 August 2023

Revision as of 17:01, 22 August 2023

Line 60:

Design of the original Compiler Compiler was started by [[Tony Brooker]] and Derrick Morris in 1959, with initial testing beginning in March 1962.<ref>http://curation.cs.manchester.ac.uk/atlas/elearn.cs.man.ac.uk/_atlas/docs/Tony%20Brooker%20and%20the%20Atlas%20Compiler%20Compiler.pdf {{bare URL PDF|date=April 2023}}</ref> Brooker's Compiler Compiler was used to create compilers for the new [[Atlas (computer)|Atlas]] computer at the [[University of Manchester]], for several languages: [[Mercury Autocode]], Extended Mercury Autocode, [[Atlas Autocode]], [[ALGOL 60]] and ASA [[Fortran]]. At roughly the same time, related work was being done by E. T. (Ned) Irons at Princeton, and Alick Glennie at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston whose "Syntax Machine" paper (declassified in 1977) inspired the META series of translator writing systems mentioned below.

The early history of metacompilers is closely tied with the history of SIG/PLAN Working group 1 on Syntax Driven Compilers. The group was started primarily through the effort of Howard Metcalfe in the Los Angeles area.<ref name="Metcalfe1"/> In the fall of 1962, Howard Metcalfe designed two compiler-writing interpreters. One used a bottom-to-top analysis technique based on a method described by Ledley and Wilson.<ref name="Ledleyl"/> The other used a top-to-bottom approach based on work by Glennie to generate random English sentences from a context-free grammar.<ref name="Glenniel"/>

At the same time, Val Schorre described two "meta machines", one generative and one analytic. The generative machine was implemented and produced random algebraic expressions. Meta I the first metacompiler was implemented by Schorre on an IBM 1401 at UCLA in January 1963. His original interpreters and metamachines were written directly in a pseudo-machine language. [[META II]], however, was written in a higher-level metalanguage able to describe its own compilation into the pseudo-machine language.<ref name="METAII"/><ref name="SMALGOL"/><ref name="META1"/>

Line 66:

Lee Schmidt at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman wrote a metacompiler in March 1963 that utilized a CRT display on the time-sharing PDP-l.<ref name="Schmidt1"/> This compiler produced actual machine code rather than interpretive code and was partially bootstrapped from Meta I.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

Schorre bootstrapped Meta II from Meta I during the Springspring of 1963. The paper on the refined metacompiler system presented at the 1964 Philadelphia ACM conference is the first paper on a metacompiler available as a general reference. The syntax and implementation technique of Schorre's system laid the foundation for most of the systems that followed. The system was implemented on a small 1401, and was used to implement a small [[ALGOL]]-like language.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

Many similar systems immediately followed.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}