Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!brahmand!grover From: grover%brahmand@Sun.COM (Vinod Grover) Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: OOD applied to interpreters and compilers Summary: Is IDL OOD? Keywords: OOD interpreters Message-ID: <125722@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 4 Oct 89 00:07:15 GMT References: <26873@genrad.UUCP> Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM Reply-To: grover@sun.UUCP (Vinod Grover) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 27 In article <26873@genrad.UUCP> charlie@genrad.com (Charlie D. Havener) writes: >The examples I have seen on Object Oriented Design apply >nicely to problems like graphic window systems and to problems >in which there are real physical objects one can think about. >It is not at all clear to me how to apply OOD or to use Object >oriented programming style to the design of program language >compilers or interpreters. > >There seems to be a classic way to do these things, i.e. lexer- >parser-code generator that is well established. > >Can someone who is comfortable with OOD comment on its applicability >to such problems? Is OOD a poor match to some problems? Will anyone >admit it? > >Comments pro and con appreciated, thanks >Charlie Havener GenRad Inc. (508-369-4400 x3302) charlie@genrad.com IF (big if:) we understand OOD to include the use of inheritance, THEN IDL (Interface Description Language) can be said to be "object-oriented". Many compilers use IDL to describe the intermediate-language and data structures. You define a class of data for some program node, and various backend phases inherit from this class of data to add attributes to that class of data. DIANA is a publicly available IDL description for use in Ada compilers. -- Vinod Grover