[mod.compilers] Comments on the simple compiler ment

compilers@ima.UUCP (01/07/86)

[from bowles at CBOSGD (Jeff Bowles)]

"The first pass is about 33k in size, so it is rather large (and almost
commentless...). Its all in C with a lex frontend. No YACC in it."

Odds are good that, if you hand-crafted the lexical analyzer yourself,
which takes little time for most languages where you "obviously" can
tell where a token stops (unlike FORTRAN, in which
	DO 10 K = 1.2
has "DO10K" is the first token), you save a lot of space.

"lex" is quite nice for the first cut, but it's a little too big a
weapon to draw when first facing the opponent.

	Jeff Bowles
	Lisle, IL