<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Dec 19, 2015, at 7:39 PM, Amir Michail <<a href="mailto:a.michail@me.com" class="">a.michail@me.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">On Dec 19, 2015, at 7:37 PM, Colin Barrett <<a href="mailto:colin@springsandstruts.com" class="">colin@springsandstruts.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On Dec 19, 2015, at 7:32 PM, Amir Michail <<a href="mailto:a.michail@me.com" class="">a.michail@me.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On Dec 19, 2015, at 7:21 PM, Colin Barrett <<a href="mailto:colin@springsandstruts.com" class="">colin@springsandstruts.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""><br class="">I’d recommend you read <a href="http://tratt.net/laurie/blog/entries/the_bootstrapped_compiler_and_the_damage_done" class="">http://tratt.net/laurie/blog/entries/the_bootstrapped_compiler_and_the_damage_done</a>, which has a number of rebuttals to what you’ve said below.<br class=""><br class=""></blockquote><br class="">That’s an interesting article but it doesn’t address the issue of whether compiler code is more like normal programming than compiler standard library code.<br class=""></blockquote><br class="">Perhaps I don’t understand what you mean, but the article gives two good reasons why compiler code is special.<br class=""></blockquote><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">Compiler standard library code tends to be very abstract and full of generics. Normal code isn’t like that.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div>Speak for yourself ;-)</div><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="">The first reason is that we understand a lot about how to design a compiler, much more than we understand about how to design other types of programs. The second follows:<br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">[C]ompilers are an atypical class of program. In essence, a compiler is a simple batch pipeline process. A program is read in and translated to a tree; a series of tree transformations are applied; and eventually one of those trees is saved out as some sort of binary data (e.g. machine code or bytecode). Most of the intermediate tree transformations calculate a relatively simple bit of information about the program and create a slightly modified tree based on it. A few calculations crop up time and time again, such as: maps from variables to scopes or types; and stacks to determine closures. Significantly, and unlike most programs in the real world, there is no interaction with users: the compiler knows all it needs about the outside world from the moment it is called.<br class=""></blockquote><br class="">Personally, I think the main reason not to rewrite the Swift compiler is that it would be a distraction from improving the Swift language and other associated tools.<br class=""><br class="">-Colin<br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On Dec 19, 2015, at 4:41 PM, Amir Michail via swift-evolution <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> wrote:<br class=""><br class="">Compiler code is probably more typical of what most programmers write than library code and so would be ideal for suggesting further language evolution ideas.<br class="">_______________________________________________<br class="">swift-evolution mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a><br class="">https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></body></html>