| First-class Attribute Grammars (2007) | |||||||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||||||
| This paper is a contribution to the ongoing quest for modular descriptions of language processors, with the specic aim of rapidly prototyping domain-specic languages [21]. Some might argue that this problem was solved in the eighties, with the development of a proliferation of language processors based on attribute grammars [11, 15, 22]. Others might argue that functional programming languages such as ML are adequate for the purpose, without any further extensions. We believe that functional programming languages do not ooeer enough specialised support for implementing compilers. However, attribute grammars are not in widespread use, despite their many advantages. This may be due to restrictions imposed by attribute denition languages, which are often less AEexible than general purpose functional programming languages. Such general languages tend to yield descriptions that are compact, but they lack the dedicated structuring mechanisms of attribute grammars. | |||||||||||||||
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