[Mono-list] Re: Should I fork the MonoBASIC project out of MCS?

Serge serge@wildwestsoftware.com
Sat, 16 Feb 2002 15:27:26 +0200


> Exactly. But if mcs supports many languages, someone is more likely to
want
> to work on developing a gcc backend than if it supports just one....

Sorry, but I honestly don't understand what do you mean by "backend" here?
In traditional sense it would be a GCC backend emitting IL for any source
language.
But it seems that neither MCS nor MonoBASIC not designed to act as a
"frontend" for GCC. They are Reflection based compilers.

Or do you mean GCC frontend to accept IL (and translate it to native code
with existing backends), in this case it doesn't matter how that IL was
emmited - by standalone compiler or compiler suite, and there are already
many compilers emmiting IL.
Also if I understand correctly, it is not possible to use GCC's own IR
_outside_ of GCC, so MCS emmiting RTL is not an option either.

BTW, from a end-user point of view I'd prefer more lightweight standalone
compilers, more than compiler suites.
Also, isn't it very easy to share code between .NET programs? I mean if
there is some common functionality between compilers (of course, there is)
why not share it in "component" way, instead of integrating?

Cheers,
Sergey