HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Is this a new idea?
Keywords: parse, performance
Date: 8 Nov 92 04:36:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-032
Reply-To: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

>[Scanning and parsing can be as much as half of the total time that a
>compiler takes (so says Ken Thompson of his Plan 9 C compiler) and that is
>quite amenable to incremental precalculation. -John]

Although the Plan 9 compiler is a very interesting design and the paper on
it is very much worth reading, some of the comments need to be taken with
a grain of salt.  He isn't doing ambitious optimization (note that he
ignores `volatile' entirely), which will surely influence the distribution
of time among phases.

I also recall a case (not a compiler and not Ken Thompson) where an
authoritative claim was made that a precompiled binary format was
necessary because re-reading the text file each time was too slow...  and
on examination this appeared to be mostly the result of an input parser
written so ineptly that it bordered on incompetence.  For the code I had
to write, I ignored the precompiled binary -- its format was complicated
and inconvenient -- and re-read the text file.  The performance impact was
unnoticeable.
-- 
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology, henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
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From: richard@harlqn.co.uk (Richard Brooksby)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Ref. Cornell Program Synthesizer (Re: Is this a new idea?) NO!
Keywords: parse, performance
Date: 9 Nov 92 10:19:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-035
Reply-To: richard@harlqn.co.uk (Richard Brooksby)
Organization: Harlequin Limited, Cambridge, England

pcwu@csie.nctu.edu.tw (Wu Pei-Chi) wrote:
> Some researchers have being working on this dream for years. It was
> called "incremental compiling" technique. Some of them are related
> with an environment,so called language-based environment or
> syntax-directed editor. A famous one is Synthesizer Generator,
> developed in Cornell University.

Reference:

  The Why and Wherefore of the Cornell Program Synthesizer
  Time Teitelbaum, Thomas Reps, Susan Horwitz
  Somewhere in SIGPLAN, 1981

Abstract:

  The Cornell Program Synthesizer is a syntax-directed programming
  environment that has been used in introductory programming courses
  since June 1979.  We present out experience with the Synthesizer by
  introducing its main features, by presenting our basic principles of
  design, and by discussing important design decisions.

Also, read Thomas Reps' thesis if you can find it.  It won an award,
and so is quite likely to be in a library near you.  I'd be interested
to know what he's doing now.

There seemed to be quite a lot of interest in synyax-directed editing
and incremental compilation using attribute grammars about ten years
ago.  How much of this work has survived to the present day?  How much
of it has proved really useful?
---
Richard Brooksby <richard@harlqn.co.uk>
ML Project / Symbolic Processing Division / Harlequin
+44 223 872522 ext 50
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From: buehlman@iwf.mabp.ethz.ch (Buehlmann Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Pointer to Ref on Operator-Evaluation-Machine
Keywords: design, prolog, comment
Date: 9 Nov 92 14:22:10 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-036
Reply-To: buehlman@iwf.mabp.ethz.ch (Buehlmann Thomas)
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH

I am lookin for a pointer to any text, report or similar about the following
idea:

If we build a recursive descent-parser it's very awkward to have to design
the grammar in such a way that it reflects the operators priority, arity,
associativity and the direction of evaluation. I remember that there are
some quite general evaluation schemes to evaluate such expressions without
having to adjust the grammar dramatically. Who remembers where such an
evaluation-machine is described.

Note that such techniques must be applied in Prolog for it allows for
the definition of operators in order to extend the already existing operators.

Please do reply by mail to
    buehlmann@iwf.mabp.ethz.ch
and I will post a summary of answers.

Thanks, Thomas
[The Ritchie C compiler used RD for most of the parser, but a simple operator
precedence scheme for expressions.  Try that. -John]
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From: kxs5829@ultb.isc.rit.edu (K.X. Saunders)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: dependency maker for make
Keywords: tools
Date: 5 Nov 92 03:07:45 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-023
Reply-To: kxs5829@ultb.isc.rit.edu (K.X. Saunders)
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Originator: kxs5829@ultb

goldman@bert.eecs.uic.edu (Jonathan Goldman) writes:
>I am looking for a program that determines dependencies for a makefile
>based upon the source files in a project.

	I've written one called genmake.  It handles nested includes.  I
send it regularly to comp.sources.misc.  Mail me if interested and I'll send
you the latest version.

	- Kyle

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kyle@nick.csh.rit.edu
Rochester Institute of Technology
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From: clyde@hitech.com.au (Clyde Smith-Stubbs)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Is this a new idea?
Keywords: performance, parse
Date: 7 Nov 92 10:16:38 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-034
Reply-To: clyde@hitech.com.au (Clyde Smith-Stubbs)
Organization: HI-TECH Software, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.

>[Scanning and parsing can be as much as half of the total time that a
>compiler takes (so says Ken Thompson of his Plan 9 C compiler) and that is
>quite amenable to incremental precalculation. -John]

_Can_ is the operative word here: with our compilers it is not that big a
proportion, but in any case, even parsing is context dependent, i.e.  you
can't parse code that contains references to such things as typedefs that
occur earlier in the code, if the typedef is missing or in the middle of
being edited. Lexical analysis can be done to a greater degree on an
incomplete program, although in most C compilers even the lexical phase is
context sensitive.

A pre-parsing scheme combined with a "quick and dirty" code generator
could certainly reduce edit-compile-debug cycle time, but I stand by my
earlier point that increasing machine speed is affecting this more than
incremental compiler technology is likely to.

I like the idea of a syntax-directed editor, but for reasons of minimizing
silly errors (unmatched braces etc.) rather than to speed up compilation.
--
 Clyde Smith-Stubbs       | HI-TECH Software,       | Voice: +61 7 300 5011
 clyde@hitech.com.au      | P.O. Box 103, Alderley, | Fax:   +61 7 300 5246
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From: kuzemcha@tartan.com
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Graph Coloring Problem
Keywords: theory, books
Date: 6 Nov 92 17:54:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-031
Reply-To: kuzemcha@tartan.com
Organization: Compilers Central

Richter@lrz.lrz-muenchen.dbp.de writes:
>Anyhow, the general problem is NP-complete and you should not search for
>optimal solutions. For good approximations, first study the literature.
>Sorry, I have no references at hand.

One good text is:
	"Computers and Intractability -
	A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness"

  	Michael R. Garey  / David S. Johnson

	published by: W.H. Freeman and Co.,  New York
	ISBN 0-7167-1045-5

This book lists over 300 NP-Complete problems, giving references to the
original transformation proofs.  Of course, graph coloring problems are
covered.

There is also a section on bounding the performance of approximation
algorithms, although no particular algorithms are given.


Regards,
Ed Kuzemchak
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From: dnl@macsch.com (David Lombard)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Is this a new idea?
Keywords: performance, comment
Date: 4 Nov 92 21:46:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-021
Reply-To: dnl@macsch.com (David Lombard)
Organization: Compilers Central

In a recent posting, Jawaid Bazyar writes:
>  The only technique that I can think of that's similar to this is called
>"pre-tokenization", and can be used to speed up a compile significantly in
>some types of languages.  Basically, you have an editor which tokenizes
>the source as you type.  Tokenization is, of course, the part of compiling
>that breaks a source program into the individual symbols and what not.
> ...
>  How much speed increase you get depends on the complexity of other parts
>of the compiler.  The speedup for an assembler is massively better than
>the speedup for, say, a C compiler.  The difference is that there is much
>more work after lexing/parsing for high level language compilers.

I think he has described the very nature of the problem in this paragraph.
The execution time of any *decent* compiler is not dominated by the
lexical scan, it's the optimization and code generation that costs.

Yes, an assembler can benefit greatly (it's a transliteration process
after all).  But a compiler???  No.  That's similar to the argument that
the single operation statement `i++' results in *better* code than `i =
i+1'.  Only a graduate student's compiler would be so unsophisticated as
to actually benefit from the syntax (clearly, the syntax is useful as part
of a larger statement).

If tokenizing truly helps a compiler's speed, your compiler can't be doing
much more than producing threaded code, perhaps with peephole
optimizations.  I wouldn't spend too much (time, money, effort) on such a
system.

The bold facing you mentioned was also used on the Apple Macintosh Pascal
system, but it was interpreted, and had a *nasty* habit of assuming too
much about the few characters it had seen.
[Maybe, but see Ken Thompson's paper on the Plan 9 C compiler that I
mentioned last week. -John]
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From: fabre@gr.osf.org (Christian Fabre)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Modulo n arithmetics
Keywords: arithmetic, question, comment
Date: 6 Nov 92 15:27:01 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-029
Reply-To: Christian Fabre <fabre@gr.osf.org>
Organization: Compilers Central

Hello,

I have a question regarding integers arithmetics.

I am wondering if any languages or application heavily rely on
modulo arithmetics:

	Given the range	[0,50],	the basic operation are
	redefined as follow:

		a op b  =>  ( a op b ) % 51

	e.g.:
	  27+30 =  57 % 51 =  7
	  12*12 = 144 % 51 = 44
 
All I can think about is error corection and encryption. Any other purpose ?


Any input welcome, please reply by news.

	Christian.
-----
  Christian Fabre, OSF-RI, 2 avenue de Vignate, 38610 Gieres, France.
     		fabre@gr.osf.org --  Tel: +33 76.63.48.90
     		fabre@ri.osf.fr  --  Fax: +33 76.51.05.32
[There's always the Chinese Remainder Theorem.  I gather that people have
used it do to large integer problems not requiring a lot of division or
comparison. -John]
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From: jdcho@karachi.eecs.nwu.edu (Jun-Dong Cho)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers,comp.theory
Subject: Color Permutation Problem
Keywords: theory, question
Date: 5 Nov 92 17:20:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-027
Reply-To: jdcho@karachi.eecs.nwu.edu (Jun-Dong Cho)
Organization: EECS Department, Northwestern University

Dear netters,

Given a complete graph G = (V,E) with edge-weighted,
(colors 1, 2, ..., n  are already assigned to nodes 1, 2, ..., n in G)
I want to minimze the following function,
by permuting colors assigned to nodes,  

 \sum_{(i,j) \in E} w_{i,j}/|C_{i} - C_{j}|

where w_{i,j} is the edge weight (positive integer) between nodes i and j,
and C_{i} is a color assigned to vertex i. 

Is the problem proven to be NP-hard?
 
Email: jdcho@eecs.nwu.edu 
-- 
Jun-Dong Cho                 |   Email: jdcho@eecs.nwu.edu
Department of EECS           |
Northwestern University      |
Evanston, IL 60208           |
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From: joe@babel.ho.att.com (Joseph M Orost)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Constant divisions, remainders
Keywords: arithmetic
Date: 5 Nov 92 13:16:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-025
Reply-To: joe@babel.ho.att.com (Joseph M Orost)
Organization: Echo Logic

kelsey@flora.ccs.northeastern.edu writes:
[Right shift isn't the same as division when the dividend is negative.]

torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen) writes:
>This depends on how you define div and mod for negative integers. The most
>usually found "definition" is that div rounds towards 0, and that mod is
>signed. But most mathematicians prefer to make div always round down and
>that mod is nonnegative. ...
>
>I think the round-to-zero rule for div and signed mod are relics from ones
>complement computers, and should be laid to rest.

The problem with this thinking is that you will get inconsistent results
if you divide by a constant power-of-2 versus dividing by a variable with
the same value.  And you will get LOTS of bug reports from the compiler
users!

In order to have the round-to-zero rule "laid to rest," first you have to
convince all the hardware designers out there that their DIV instruction
is broken: GOOD LUCK!

                                regards,
                                joe

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From: tmb@arollaidiap.ch (Thomas M. Breuel)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Is this a new idea?
Keywords: performance
Date: 6 Nov 92 17:32:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-030
Reply-To: tmb@arollaidiap.ch (Thomas M. Breuel)
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab

M.J.Landzaat@fel.tno.nl (Maarten Landzaat) writes:
| [a compiler] that during my editing, reads the program text I typed in so
| far, and tries to compile and link it as much as it can in the background,
| with low priority so nobody gets bad response.

There are several programming environments that do essentially that: when
you change a source file, only the changed definitions need to be
recompiled. In addition to getting fast compilation and linking, such
environments also let you fix bugs in running programs and write auxiliary
debugging functions in the same language as your main code.

Saber C/C++ notwithstanding, C/C++ semantics are rather poorly suited to
such an environment, though.  Languages like CommonLisp, Scheme, and SML,
on the other hand, have been designed with this kind of programming
environment in mind. All you need to do to get such a programming
environment is to move from a 60's language (C) to an 80's (sic) language.

					Thomas.
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From: dak@sq.sq.com (David A Keldsen)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Is this a new idea?
Keywords: performance, parse
Date: 4 Nov 92 19:55:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.92-11-020
Reply-To: dak@sq.sq.com (David A Keldsen)
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada

M.J.Landzaat@fel.tno.nl (Maarten Landzaat) writes:
: [a compiler] that during my editing, reads the program text I typed in so
: far, and tries to compile and link it as much as it can in the background,
: with low priority so nobody gets bad response.
 
pcwu@csie.nctu.edu.tw (Wu Pei-Chi) writes:
>Some researchers have being working on this dream for years. It was called
>"incremental compiling" technique. Some of them are related with an
>environment,so called language-based environment or syntax-directed
>editor. A famous one is Synthesizer Generator, developed in Cornell
>University.

A very nice overview of the Synthesizer Generator, and using it in an
editing environment, can be found in _Generating Language Based
Environments_ by Thomas W. Reps.  It's an MIT Press edition in the ACM
Doctoral Dissertation Award (1983) series.  ISBN 0-262-18115-0

The approach is (roughly) to do as much as possible with an attribute
grammar for the language in question, with attributes corresponding to
the semantic subset of interest.  For example, one could check
declarations and uses of variables for consistency.

Recommended reading.

Regards,
Dak
-- 
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email: dak@sq.com  phone: 416-239-4801
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From: bohy6489@iscsvax.uni.edu
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: need information about courses
Date: 6 Nov 92 11:28:47 -0600
Organization: University of Northern Iowa

I am doing sort of a survey for one of my professors here at UNI.  The
department is in the midst of revising its curriculum, and are considering what
sorts of general education and service courses to offer.  Could any/all of you
please send the following information to bohy@att1.uni.edu:

1. name of school and number of students
2. name and short (if needed) description of general education courses 
   offered by your CS department
3. name and short (if needed) description of service courses offered by
   your CS department

Thank you very much.  Please send this information to the account above.  I
cannot post from that account, but try to keep my "business"-oriented mail over
there (and my "fun"-oriented mail here).

Thanks again!

===============================================================================
Jim Bohy                                        | "...I mean, in some ways,
Graduate Student - Computer Science Education   |  chasing the beast is easier
University of Northern Iowa                     |  than living with people..."
Cedar Falls, IA  50614                          | 
bohy@att1.uni.edu                               |  - King Pellinore
===============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Help - Computer Literacy Curriculum Question
From: szurek@vms.cis.pitt.edu (Joseph R Szurek)
Date: 12 Nov 92 19:18:51 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Pittsburgh
Originator: szurek@unixd2.cis.pitt.edu

We are currently investigating the possibility of a campus-wide computer
literacy requirement, and would like to know what other schools are doing.

Please respond with:
  1) Name and size of school.  Tlso type (self-contained, branch campus, etc)
  2) Do you have a computer literacy requirement?
	If yes, how is it structured?  (Workshops, credit courses, non-credit)
		Is there an exemption policy (for experienced users)?
	If no, has it been discussed, and why was the decision no?
  3) Regardless of the answers above, what kinds of "service" level courses
	do you offer for credit?  For each, please provide:
		title (or brief description)
		number of credits
		lab component?
		software used

Thank you for your time and trouble.  You can e-mail to the address above
or if you would prefer to fill out a prepared form, I'll supply on upon
request.
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: C style guide for student programs
From: jhowatt@eeyore.stcloud.msus.edu (Jim Howatt)
Date: 6 Nov 92 15:30:17 -0600
Distribution: na
Organization: St. Cloud State Univ., MN

Does anyone have one out there that they'd care to share?

Thanks in advance.

Dr. James W. (Jim) Howatt
Department of Computer Science
139 Engineering and Computing Center
St. Cloud State University
St. Cloud, MN 56301-4498
email: jhowatt@eeyore.StCloud.MSUS.edu
Newsgroups: comp.edu,soc.college.gradinfo,comp.software-eng,comp.programming
From: jcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu (Jim Cochrane)
Subject: Good master's programs in San Diego area
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Keywords: computer science, software engineering, physics, graduate programs
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 05:59:54 GMT

My brother is looking for a school in the San Diego area to get his
master's degree at.  He's not sure what his major would be at this
point, but he has a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in physics
from Annapolis Naval Academy.  Fields of study that he is interested in
are computer science, software engineering, and scientific programming --
especially in the area of physics or astro-physics.

So, my question is, what schools in the San Diego area have programs that
are strong in some or all of these areas, and what is each school's
strengths and weaknesses?  I know that there are two state schools in the
area, UCSD and SDSU, and there's also a University of San Diego, but I
don't have any current information on the quality of these schools.
I would appreciate any information on these or others schools in the area
that you think would be worth considering.  I would prefer e-mail
responses.

Thanks in advance.  If others also would like this information, please
let me know via email.  I will either mail the responses I receive to you
or post them if the number of requests is very large.


Jim Cochrane
jcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu
Newsgroups: comp.edu
From: jonathan@gabriel.keele.ac.uk (Jonathan Knight)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Examination timetabling software
Date: 9 Nov 92 12:08:37 GMT
Organization: Keele University, England

My wife works in an administration role in this University and has
been looking out for some examination software that will timetable
all our exams.

The software should be able to note all the course combinations that
a student takes and then organise the exams into rooms which are
suitable for the type of exam being taken (size, lab equipment etc)
so that no student is supposed to be in two places at the same time.

Seeing as many Universites must have the same problem each year I
wondered what everyone else was doing.
From: johnm@hitwr.hauppaugeNY.NCR.COM (johnm)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: microprocessors
Date: 9 Nov 92 13:19:23 GMT
Organization: ADDS: NCR Displays Division

I have a question for the Intel experts. I am an Analog engineer 
looking to get some Microprocessor experience. Becaues of what
we use at work I have chosen the 8031/32/51/52 Micro series. I
bought a book from intel on the 8051, programming and applications with 
experiments but it requires an SDK-51 which Intel does not support. They
gave me the names of 2 companies that do but when I called them they 
said that they did not. Does any one know how I might proceed in 
educating my self.
An emulator is out of the question.

Thanks in advance.
John Mancino
ADDS-NCR 516-231-5400
From: sloan@turing.eecs.uic.edu (Bob Sloan)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Request: Internet prog. contest
Date: 9 Nov 92 22:11:28 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Dept. of EECS, University of Illinois at Chicago


	I missed the info on the Internet programming contest.  Could
somebody please email it to me?
Newsgroups: comp.edu