Re: [Pharo-project] Breaking another dependency to Compiler (related to Traits I think)
I read a paper once (at the University of New Brunswick (Canada)) library in which the grammar for a language was used to construct a data compressor for syntaxly correct programs. The output was a compressed form of a parse/syntax tree with comments and white space included. Once decompressed, the tree could be used to reconstruct the source. I don't know if a compressed syntax tree would be very useful for programming tasks but it could be used to compress Smalltalk's source file and changes file. This assumes the time saved by filing in smaller chucks of programs segments would greater than the cost of decompression. I am designing and planning to implement a parser generator tool (yes, another parser generator tool, something the world really needs ;-) ). If/when this project is complete perhaps I'll give this compressed AST idea a try. Convincing the Squeak/Pharo world that it should be used is another matter entirely. Ralph Boland
On Aug 16, 2012, at 6:13 PM, Ralph Boland wrote:
I read a paper once (at the University of New Brunswick (Canada)) library in which the grammar for a language was used to construct a data compressor for syntaxly correct programs. The output was a compressed form of a parse/syntax tree with comments and white space included. Once decompressed, the tree could be used to reconstruct the source. I don't know if a compressed syntax tree would be very useful for programming tasks but it could be used to compress Smalltalk's source file and changes file. This assumes the time saved by filing in smaller chucks of programs segments would greater than the cost of decompression.
do you have the reference? One guy told me and in Oberon or something like that the ast was compressed long time ago.
I am designing and planning to implement a parser generator tool (yes, another parser generator tool, something the world really needs ;-) ).
This is another questions :) Why don't you want to improve petitparser?
If/when this project is complete perhaps I'll give this compressed AST idea a try.
Convincing the Squeak/Pharo world that it should be used is another matter entirely.
Since marcus PhD we want to have AST stored in the system, we just need to have a compressed version of AST to make an experiment and measure. Stef
Ralph Boland
On 16 Aug 2012, at 19:29, Stéphane Ducasse wrote:
On Aug 16, 2012, at 6:13 PM, Ralph Boland wrote:
I read a paper once (at the University of New Brunswick (Canada)) library in which the grammar for a language was used to construct a data compressor for syntaxly correct programs. The output was a compressed form of a parse/syntax tree with comments and white space included. Once decompressed, the tree could be used to reconstruct the source. I don't know if a compressed syntax tree would be very useful for programming tasks but it could be used to compress Smalltalk's source file and changes file. This assumes the time saved by filing in smaller chucks of programs segments would greater than the cost of decompression.
do you have the reference? One guy told me and in Oberon or something like that the ast was compressed long time ago.
Franz, M. & Kistler, T. (1997), 'Slim Binaries', Commun. ACM 40 (12) , 87--94 . http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=265576 -- Stefan Marr Software Languages Lab Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium http://soft.vub.ac.be/~smarr Phone: +32 2 629 2974 Fax: +32 2 629 3525
I read a paper once (at the University of New Brunswick (Canada)) library in which the grammar for a language was used to construct a data compressor for syntaxly correct programs. The output was a compressed form of a parse/syntax tree with comments and white space included. Once decompressed, the tree could be used to reconstruct the source. I don't know if a compressed syntax tree would be very useful for programming tasks but it could be used to compress Smalltalk's source file and changes file. This assumes the time saved by filing in smaller chucks of programs segments would greater than the cost of decompression.
do you have the reference? One guy told me and in Oberon or something like that the ast was compressed long time ago.
Franz, M. & Kistler, T. (1997), 'Slim Binaries', Commun. ACM 40 (12) , 87--94 . http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=265576
Ok we know this one :) Stef
participants (3)
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Ralph Boland -
Stefan Marr -
Stéphane Ducasse