Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!dsl.pitt.edu!pitt!willett!ForthNet
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Metacompilation
Message-ID: <2070.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 9 Dec 90 23:33:11 GMT
Organization: String, Scotch tape, and Paperclips.  (in Pgh, PA)
Lines: 24

Category 3,  Topic 27
Message 40        Sun Dec 09, 1990
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 09:44 EST
 
> Admittedly, metacompilers are tricky, but I don't think that it is
 > as bad as all that.  [Examples.]

Fair enough.  I haven't tried any of the ones you mention.  I struggled
through the early Nautilus compiler, Cassady's MetaForth, a similar compiler
by Charles Curley, and the polyForth target compiler.  I was able to use the
first three of these "cookbook" fashion -- i.e., leave it set up as the author
has, and make your source code look like his -- but I wasn't able to make them
do what _I_ want.  (Except for the polyForth compiler, where I had the benefit
of personal instruction by the author(s), i.e., I took the Forth, Inc. class. 
I like this compiler, but I couldn't afford it.)

Perhaps this is less a comment about metacompilers, and more a comment about
metacompiler documentation.  Now that I've "rolled my own" I find I understand
others much better.

-Brad
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett through a semi-automated process.
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us or uunet!willett!dwp