Nicolas I'm convinced marcus and clement will be definitively interested! Open tickets :). Opal is not fully polished yet. It has a nice skeleton but requires more love to really shine. This is great that it was pushed in Pharo so that we can all have a look. For us this is the infrastructure for a new generation open-compiler so this is nice to hear that from you. :) Stef
Opal is fun. I have a few simplifications to propose for the AST->BC OCASTTranslator
1) instead of testing isEffectTranslator or refining in subclass, most often we could just let self visit the node. Indeed, self will already be either a Translator ForEffect or ForValue.
For example, this could apply to emitIfFalseIfTrue: emitIfNilIfNotNil: visitCascadeNode:
This might also remove a few useless pushNil; pop BC sequences.
2) I think we can simplify the #visitBlockNode: / #visitSequenceNode: pair.
Indeed, visitSequenceNode: tests if its parent isBlock, and if so will emitValue, else emitEffect. Inversely visitBlockNode: always ask to emitEffect, but since it contains a SequenceNode, this is a big lie.
I suggest to always let the valueTranslator emitValue visitBlockNode: and simplify #visitSequenceNode: to just let (self visitNode: statements last).
3) I suggest changing the BC generated for or: and and:
instead of:
valueTranslator visitNode: aMessageNode receiver. methodBuilder jumpAheadTo: #else if: false; pushLiteral: true; jumpAheadTo: #end; jumpAheadTarget: #else. valueTranslator visitInlinedBlockNode: aMessageNode arguments first. methodBuilder jumpAheadTarget: #end.
We could just use dup and thus remove a jump:
valueTranslator visitNode: aMessageNode receiver. methodBuilder pushDup; jumpAheadTo: #end if: true; popTop. self visitInlinedBlockNode: aMessageNode arguments first. methodBuilder jumpAheadTarget: #end.
ForEffect, this would just be
self emitIfFalse: aMessageNode
Of course, that last change might disturb the Decompiler a bit, but since we care far less now...
I can open 1 or more issues if there is an interest.
Nicolas