Python Front-end to GCC

[Piet van Oostrum]

Mark Janssen <dreamingforward at gmail.com> writes:

>> No its not like those 'compilers' i dont really agree with a compiler generating C/C++ and saying its producing native code. I dont really believe its truely within the statement. Compilers that do that tend to put in alot of type saftey code and debugging internals at a high level to get things working in other projects i am not saying python compilers here i havent analysed enough to say this.
>
> Hmm, well what I'd personally find interesting from a computer science
> point of view is a app that will take a language specification in BNF
> (complete with keywords and all) and output C code which is then
> compiled to an executable as normal.  This is how a front-end should
> be designed.  A middle-layer for translating common language elements
> like lists, sets, etc, could make it easy.

A language specification in BNF is just syntax. It doesn't say anything
about semantics. So how could this be used to produce executable C code
for a program? BNF is used to produce parsers. But a parser isn't
sufficient.
-- 
Piet van Oostrum <piet at vanoostrum.org>
WWW: http://pietvanoostrum.com/
PGP key: [8DAE142BE17999C4]