[fpc-devel] New to list

[Daniël Mantione]

Op Sun, 16 Jul 2006, schreef Bart Hotmail:

> Hi,
> 
> Because i am very much interested in code optimization (SSA),I got the fpc
> v2.0.2 source and am reading through it & the internals doc.

Check the wiki article "Single assignment", which deals about the subject.

> For now i have the following questions/comments:
> * Are there plans to put in the missing parts of the internals doc,
> specifically "The code generator"?

What document are you referring to, Comparch.pdf? That document is indeed 
outdated. While updating is might be a good idea, I fear there are much 
higher priorities.

> * Are there plans to perform (some level of) code cleanup?
> I found that the code not always easy to follow
>    for example: there are  procedures of 100s of lines long, the compiler
> state is composed of a lot of global
>    variables spread accross several units, and there is mixed coding
> conventions (name casing, indenting).

During normal development, we are contiuously doing changes to get the 
code cleaner and actually I'm reasonably satisfied with the cleanness of the 
code at the moment: We have a very clean code generator structure, the 
code is reasonably well documented, OOP is used were appropriate, etc. 
However, there is always room for improvement and indeed there exist a 
few very long procedures.

> Beforehand i expected to see the front-end and back-end loosely coupled
> (nice for putting a new front end in to make a new compiler), but i have 
> not been unable to tell yet.

The back-end has a reasonably clean interface, because the parser creates 
nodes using virtual constructors. It should therefore be possible to bolt 
a different parser on top of the backend. However, nobody has walked this 
path yet.


> Of course, I am always happy to contribute.

Sounds interresting!

Daniël