Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: newrule from metalex.lisp

[Bill Page]

On 8/9/07, Weiss, Juergen wrote:
> In principle metalex.lisp is used to generate fnewmeta.lisp
> from fnewmeta.meta (and metameta.lisp from metameta.meta).
> metameta.meta is a parser generator written in itself. The
> grammar of the old parser (for the SPAD compiler) is
> defined in the file fnewmeta.meta.
>
> Seems that someone did not like this setup and removed
> some files. The remaining parts do not make much sense
> anymore. So one solution is to eliminate the remnants,
> the other to get the files from the archives (tar file)
> and add some rules in the Makefiles.
>

In

http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/AxiomDevelopment

"There is a third language used in the system called Meta. (Which is
why meta.tar exists in zips). This code is not part of the bootstrap
but needs to be at some point. Changing the meta parser (see
metameta.lisp, fnewmeta.lisp, and metalex.lisp) would surely cause
havoc. In the distributed system I replaced the Meta code with common
lisp."

-----

You probably know where my sympathy lies. I strongly believe that Tim
is right: "This code is not part of the bootstrap but needs to be at
some point." and I object to the continuing trend to reduce everything
to Lisp.

I think that meta is actually rather well documented (although the
code in Axiom may not be). See:

http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1093415.1093417

META/LISP: an interactive translator writing system
Source  ACM SIGSAM Bulletin archive
Issue 16  (October 1970) table of contents
Pages: 10 - 18
Year of Publication: 1970
ISSN:0163-5824
Author  
R. D. Jenks      IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New 
York

http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/362896.362902

Referenced:

http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/800204.806291
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/113447317/ABSTRACT
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/987508.987512

also in

Jenks, R.D.: META/PLUS: The Syntax Extension Facility for SCRATCHPAD,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, RC 3259, New York, Feb. 23, 1971

Regards,
Bill Page.