On Tuesday, 29 May 2018 at 07:25:39 UTC, Stefan Koch wrote:
As a a compiler developer, I can guarantee that at some point
you _need_ to understand all of the language.
If you don't you will mis-compile code.
Also the more complex the language gets the more special-case
handling needs to be added to the compiler making it slower and
more brittle.
Unconstrained complexity growth is a pretty scary thing.
Could this be more a problem of compiler 'architecture'?
Or perhaps hardware architecture?
Can we design better architecture (at all levels) to better
accomodate inevitable change?
Could it be a problem of not having enough compiler writers -
where each knows some part(s), but together they know all the
parts? Collaboration is good way to manage complexity.
A compiler writer insisting they must know it all, (while
understandable) is an unatural constraint. You'll end up like
Scott Meyers - decades of effort learning, but can never
understand it, because change is a moving target.
