RE: [Axiom-developer] Boot

[Weiss, Juergen]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Page 

> So we can eliminate Shoe and also the old interpreter parser,
> and everything will still work properly, right?

not quite. The old parser is used by the SPAD compiler,
can be used as BOOT parser and as the interpreter
parser. So in principle we could drop the new parser and 
the boot directory. There are some (minor ?) problems with 
that: the old parser does not understand rule syntax (used 
by the interpreter). When some day the SPAD compiler would be 
replaced by Aldor, the need for the old parser would be diminished.
>From memory I would say, that the old parser does not keep the
original input - so error messages especially in the SPAD compiler
show the failing expression in internal lisp syntax - not very 
user friendly. Then there is the question of style: The old
parser is build around the grammar file fnewmeta with  special
syntax handled by functions in parse.boot and postpar.boot.
the new parser in cparse.boot (?) and support functions 
in some other files are written in different style
(recursive descent ?).

I think it is extremely important to delete duplicate code. On the
other side, without a clear direction of development, with the
uncertainty if Aldor will be available freely, I find it difficult
to suggest, which parser to drop.

Regards

Juergen Weiss

Juergen Weiss     | Universitaet Mainz, Zentrum fuer Datenverarbeitung,
address@hidden| 55099 Mainz, Tel: +49(6131)39-26361, FAX:
+49(6131)39-26407