Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!usc!cs.utexas.edu!execu!sequoia!rpp386!woody From: woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: Compiled PostScript Summary: compiler stuff Message-ID: <17518@rpp386.cactus.org> Date: 31 Dec 89 00:48:21 GMT References: Distribution: comp Organization: River Parishes Programming, Plano, TX Lines: 20 In article , pollack@toto.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jordan B Pollack) writes: > I just want to note that it is completely inconsequential whether or > not the syntax of a programming language is context-free. The > important thing for compiling is that run-time dependencies can be > effectively circumscribed. true enough. > However, postscript is a "throwaway" language, and any effort at such > optimization probably wouldnt be very cost effective. To justify such > a tremendous project (other than as a long-term way to silence an > arrogant undergraduate hacker!) one would at least need a very large > and slow postscript program which had to be run lots of times with complex and > varying input. The only such program I could think of would be a > postscript compiler written in postscript... Right. An impossiblity. You can't generate machine language if you wanted to. Several other of the net readers have suggested that a PS compiler written in PS would be the real test. When someone writes one let me know. Go find an undergraduate hacker somewhere and give him the job. My degree was issued in 1980.....