Thu Nov 11

Prelude : covid, zoom, and all that - today's protocol.

Zero : my feedback and comments - status update.

First : let's discuss the homework. (There are solutions available on the textbook's website.)

dickinson

Second : let's look at an example, and talk about what I'd like to do for the next few weeks : "a dickinson language interpreter & compiler" .

• v0.1 source : arithmetic, lexer, description, many TODOs.

The goal : decide on a simple generic programming language, extend the lexer accordingly, write a recursive descent parser, and implement at least an interpreter and lisp compiler.

This is going to be a class-wide group project (including me as needed), possibly with individual or small group variations. By the end of the semester, I want each of you to write up a short discussion of this code base : what it is, how it works, and what your contributions to the effort were.

parsing

Finally, I'll start a discussion of parsing today, and continue next week.

• wikipedia: recursive descent parser
  • wikipedia: types of parsers
• molly page - parsing
• Matt Might : parsing regex with recursive descent
• and his parsing slides

We may start an in-class live coding to start writing a parser for for the dickinson language project.

I've attached the two files that we worked on in class, thinking.txt (thoughts about our dickinson language) and 3_4.txt (on one of the assigned homework exercises).

There's a link to the zoom recording of today's class on the zoom videos page.

aside

• Pyjion - a JIT compiler for Python | discussion ... "veneer of simplicity hides an incredible amount of complexity. You have to read hundreds of lines of CPython to understand the full semantics of a statement like "a + b". The semantics are complicated/compromised by many optimizations and implementation details ..."

attachments

		last modified	size
	3_4.txt	Thu Nov 11 2021 05:21 pm	265B
	thinking.txt	Thu Nov 11 2021 05:21 pm	1.4K