Re: Octave Compiler And Octave Interpreter Source Doku

[Paul Thomas]

Jens Ruecknagel wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am done. My Student research project is done and I can publish it.

Well done!  I took a quick spin through it this morning.  I think that 
this is a valuable contribution.

> I implemented a minimal Octave to C++ compiler. It is not really good 
> - just a proof of concept.
> The compiler supports a subset of Octave. It keeps Dynamic Typing. It 
> builds a stack machine to evaluate expressions. This way the execution 
> speed of loops is doubled.
>
>
> Second I wrote a documentation of the Octave Interpreter source code.
> It is the first Chapter of my student research project paper.
> Do you think I should separate the doku from the paper? Do you want to 
> include it into the octave Documentation?

For what it is worth, I think that it should be available somewhere.

> The paper and the compiler can be downloaded from 
> http://www.stud.tu-ilmenau.de/~rueckn/
>
>
> As my masters paper I will try to build a compiler with type 
> inference. I am happy about any advice.
> I hereby want to start the compiler discussion again.
> I got the Majic-Paper, I am reading it right now. Are there any other 
> papers I should read.
> Is there an octave/matlab Specification, I can use to build the type 
> inference system?

George Almasi is communicative until you ask for a copy of the Majic 
source.  This is true for all his collaborators and his thesis advisor 
too.  Majic is said to be the basis for the just-in-time compiler of 
Matlab R13.  The only documentation I could find on the JIT was a 
technical note on what it does and does not do.  It is an active 
research topic at Mathworks - they have been hiring for this work.

I think that you will have to do this job from scratch, using Almasi's 
thesis as a basis (perhaps!).  I think that you can be encouraged that 
he did the type inferenceing, the interpreter and the JIT for his 
doctoral thesis - thus, a good compiler, including type inferenceing, 
should be possible for a masters.

Good luck!

> Thanks
>
> Jens