[Mono-list] Novel Proposal for Mono Compiler Implementations

[Fergus Henderson]

On 11-Jul-2001, Rhys Weatherley <rweather@zip.com.au> wrote:
> Bob Salita wrote:
> 
> > The Solution [....]
> 
> Essentially, you want to create an UNCOL (Universal Compiler-
> Oriented Language).  UNCOL's have been the holy grail of compiler
> research since the 1950's.  They always flounder because at some
> point you have to introduce language-specific or emitter-specific
> behaviour to make the system work.

Actually UNCOL's of various kinds are doing well.  For example, GCC's
"tree" data structure and the .NET IL are both UNCOLs.  They are just
not quite as universal as you might like.

> The point is that you have to make implementation choices
> very early in the process, but those choices destroy the UNCOL
> and all of its benefits immediately.

These choices destroy *some* of the benefits.
But many of the benefits remain.

As absolute efficiency -- the last 10% or 20% of performance --
becomes less and less important, due to hardware getting faster,
the advantages of UNCOLs will only increase.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
The University of Melbourne         |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.