Re: Some Questions

[Andy Wingo]

Greets,

On Thu 25 Mar 2010 20:42, Michael Lucy <address@hidden> writes:

> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Andy Wingo <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> On Thu 25 Mar 2010 06:53, Michael Lucy <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> I'm interested in applying to work on Guile, and I was hoping to talk
>>> to somebody about the project ideas.  I noticed that
>>> http://www.gnu.org/software/soc-projects/ideas-2010.html said there
>>> were already mentors picked out for the various projects; should I be
>>> talking to them directly or writing to the Guile mailing lists?
>>
>> I am a Guile co-maintainer, and mentored Daniel Kraft's work on the
>> elisp compiler last year. I prefer to talk over the mailing list, as it
>> saves me bandwidth :)
>
> Should I be on the mailing list then?

http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/mail/mail.html :) Guile-devel. Send
things there, and copy me on them if you really want it to go to my
attention.

> Anyway, I'm interested in the compiling-things-to-guile idea.  You
> mention Lua on the GSOC ideas page, but you also mention Python on
> http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/ideas.html .  Do you have a
> preference as to which of these I'd try to implement?  I know a bit of
> Python and next to no Lua, but Lua strikes me as simpler--do you think
> it would be significantly easier to finish a Lua-to-Guile compiler
> over the summer?

Well, I've already heard of someone who would like to do Lua, so if it's
the same to you, I'd have a look at Python. Here's a mail I sent to the
list recently regarding practicalities:

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2010-03/msg00076.html

I'd also have a look at Thomas Bushnell's early work at supporting
Python, before we had the compiler: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gpc

I am somewhat concerned that we'll end up with a number of half-finished
language implementations. I'm not sure what to do or think about that.

> You also mention on the GSOC ideas page that there's an unfinished
> javascript compiler--is there already a lexical analyzer/parser
> generator thing from that which I could re-use?  If not, do you think
> it would be easier to port something that already exists into Guile or
> write one myself?

Hm, another thought, project-wise: have you heard of parsing expression
grammars before? Here are a couple links:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsing_expression_grammar
   http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/lpeg/lpeg.html

Writing a good PEG parser library, together with docs and example
grammars, sounds like about a 1.5-2 month project -- just about right
for the SOC.

We do have a LALR parser generator; I said something else about it in
the mail to guile-devel.

Happy hacking,

Andy
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