From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Jan 4 16: 2:42 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E079B37B401 for ; Sat, 4 Jan 2003 16:02:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from HAL9000.homeunix.com (12-233-57-224.client.attbi.com [12.233.57.224]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E3D4143F2C for ; Sat, 4 Jan 2003 16:02:37 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dschultz@uclink.Berkeley.EDU) Received: from HAL9000.homeunix.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by HAL9000.homeunix.com (8.12.6/8.12.5) with ESMTP id h0502b0j000875; Sat, 4 Jan 2003 16:02:37 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dschultz@uclink.Berkeley.EDU) Received: (from das@localhost) by HAL9000.homeunix.com (8.12.6/8.12.5/Submit) id h0502aN8000874; Sat, 4 Jan 2003 16:02:36 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dschultz@uclink.Berkeley.EDU) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 16:02:36 -0800 From: David Schultz To: Terry Lambert Cc: Cliff Sarginson , FreeBSD Chat Subject: Re: In the land of the blind a one eyed man becomes king Message-ID: <20030105000236.GB739@HAL9000.homeunix.com> Mail-Followup-To: Terry Lambert , Cliff Sarginson , FreeBSD Chat 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> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <3E17535D.15E80093@mindspring.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Thus spake Terry Lambert : > 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