My $0.02 (for whatever it is worth as a non-contributor at this point): I agree that dual maintenance is likely to be a total pain.
Picking any one language for the compiler will always displease some part of the community. If you move to Java exclusively, C++ shops may complain, etc. If I had to pick one, I'd pick something a bit lighter-weight than Java. Probably Perl fits the bill -- not because I like the language much but because it can serve as a lowest-common denominator language and the compiler honestly doesn't need to be that complex. Alternatively, turn all the language implementations into a set of template files and come up with a lightweight template generation specification that can be implemented simply in any language. Then if you don't like any of the language choices, you can go ahead and implement it in the language of your choice. Obviously this is a lot more work and requires some real brain power to be applied but it might actually be a nice separate open-source project with more general applicability if done right. Chad -----Original Message----- From: Bryan Duxbury [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 7:38 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Thrift compiler in Java (have parser, willing to hack) I agree that our end goal would be to have a single compiler, though clearly there would be a long period of us maintaining both. On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 4:43 AM, Greg Stein <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 05:21, Emmanuel Bourg <[email protected]> wrote: > > Le 26/08/2010 22:54, Bjorn Borud a écrit : > > > >> if anyone is interested in this, I am going to talk to some people > >> tomorrow to get formal approval for open sourcing it. > >> > >> any thoughts? > > > > Having a Java base parser/compiler would be really nice! > > > > When I wrote my "light" compiler for Java [1] I first thought about > > rewriting the compiler in Java from scratch. Eventually I chose to > > hack > the > > existing C++ code, but from the perspective of a Java developer > > working > on > > Windows that was really a pain. Getting the Thrift source to compile > isn't > > really trivial, and using the compiler is rather impractical (I > > switch > back > > and forth between Windows and a Debian box). > > > > There is no reason to replace the existing compiler in C++, a Java > compiler > > can coexist. Choice is good. > > Dual maintenance is awful. It is a serious drag on the community to > try and support *two* compilers. I would be *very* against trying to > have coexisting compilers. We need to stick to one and make it > successful. > > Cheers, > -g >
