Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!ima!johnl
From: megatest!djones@riacs.EDU (Dave Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: tempus fugit
Message-ID: <931@ima.ISC.COM>
Date: 29 Mar 88 22:44:11 GMT
Sender: johnl@ima.ISC.COM
Reply-To: megatest!djones@riacs.EDU (Dave Jones)
Organization: Megatest Corporation, San Jose, Ca
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Approved: compilers@ima.UUCP

Hey there.

Let's hear your guestimates.  How many man-months of effort can we
say should go into the construction of a new Pascal compiler?  Assume
that you have C and Yacc or some such, but not much else.  What kind
of numbers can you say?

Dave Jones, Megatest Corp., 880 Fox Lane, San Jose, CA.  95131

(408) 437-9700 Ext 3227
UUCP: ucbvax!sun!megatest!djones
ARPA: megatest!djones@riacs.EDU
[I wrote a Fortran compiler and library that was pretty complete but didn't do
any optimization; it took a year and a half working about one day a week.
Smart undergraduates write Pascal compilers as term projects, so I'd say that
if you can't get one going in three months or so, you're not trying very hard.
This assumes, of course, that you have a reasonable environment with an
assembler and linker and such. It also assumes that you're not planning to
make enormous extensions nor do lots of extremely advanced optimizations. But
I really have to ask, why does the world need another Pascal compiler? -John]
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