>>>>> "DS" == Dan Sugalski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
DS> Not that tricky. (And no, those aren't regex variables. I'm having
DS> LSI-11 Macro flashbacks here)
>>
>> wow, the macro-11 private/lexical labels! one of the very nice features
>> of macro-11 that is worth stealing (if perl didn't already have loops :)
DS> Yup. I plan on stealing it, more or less, for the parrot assembler.
we do need macros at the assembler level. i actually imagine some
masochists^Wexperimenters will write hand parrot^Wsantana code. there
might even be a good use for it if the optimizor can't really tweak it
right. so we will need many of the faetures that the classic macro
assemblers had. i think the assembler could be written in perl(5) with
no trouble.
so here is a partial list of useful features:
label support for sub calls, branching, etc.
immediate values (constants, strings, etc.)
macros with positional or named params, local label generation,
conditionals (which execute when the macro is expanded), etc.
DS> Parrot won't care--if you want to branch someplace, go for
DS> it. It's your responsibility as a programmer (or programmer
DS> writing code generators) to make sure that the destination's a
DS> valid place to branch to.
and having label support will make that easier. we don't want santana
coders to count bytes to branch. this will require 2 passes which isn't
a major problem
>> and pdp-11 had BR and MOV op codes, not 'store' and 'branch'.
DS> Sure, but then we don't have to wedge our opcode names into the
DS> RAD-50 restricted character sets. (We'll be able to have opcode
DS> names longer than 6 characters, too... :)
nah, i say let's restrict all santana tokens to RAD-50. these young
whippersnappers don't know how good they have it with long names and
full character sets.
uri
--
Uri Guttman --------- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------- http://www.sysarch.com
SYStems ARCHitecture and Stem Development ------ http://www.stemsystems.com
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