Re: Re: software design clarification

Hi Nathaniel,

good to see you are still hanging out here. :-)

Nathaniel Smith wrote:

> I know I've brought this up before, and apologies for providing
> another distraction from, you know, actually writing said code... but
> isn't this yet more reason to consider just integrating Elsa?  It's
> 2-clause BSD, it already parses C++ well, Mozilla is investing heavily
> in using it to build automated refactoring tools...

Yes, Elsa is definitely on my radar. I have been looking at the code, as
well as the docs, for a while, and even had some discussion with its main
author.

What holds me back from hooking that up as a C++ parser is principaly
two reasons:

* It doesn't have all the features Synopsis supports, and thus, even though
  it is more complete, it would cut on the functionality we can provide.

* The code is quite messy. While I could treat it as a black box (as long
  as it works, at least), I believe part of the appeal to work on Synopsis
  is to make all the logic of a C++ compiler frontend as transparent as possible,
  i.e. it is also a very educative experience (for me at least, but hopefully
  also to others who look at the code).


Yet another alternative that hasn't come up yet is to try to enhance GCC
itself, i.e. add all the hooks there to make it useable in a context like
Synopsis (that's the path choosen by the gccxml folks). While there are
a couple of people who try to convince me that this is a better way to spend
my spare time, I think the reasoning is principally the same as for Elsa
(see above).


Thanks,
		Stefan

-- 

      ...ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin...