Re: Interactive parsing with Bison

[Hans Aberg]

On 26 Jun 2006, at 18:19, Satya wrote:

> > For example, the use of a "make" file gives full programming control,
> > that the type of IDE you mention does not.
>
> By creating and IDE for make, we can give that flexibility to a user
> who doesn't understand the language of make (but understands file
> dependencies);

You are essentially asking for making a graphical representation of  
the programming language of "make". This can be done by displaying  
the AST's <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_syntax_tree>  
graphically. One can then convert an AST into program code. This is  
in fact an approach, minus the graphics, I use in a theorem prover I  
am working in, in order to make the semantics independent of the  
input syntax. But it is a long way to go.

A semantic feature that these IDE's have, but I think that "make"  
does not, is the ability to look into a file for constructs such as  
"#include <filename>", make a lookup of the file with name  
'filename', and then set up the appropriate file dependencies. Adding  
this feature to "make", if it not already has it, might help  
simplifying the "make"-files, as well as simplifying development.

  Hans Aberg