On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 10:30:00AM +0200, Kai Henningsen wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (James E Wilson) wrote on 10.03.05 in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > On Thu, 2005-03-10 at 17:48, Hans-Peter Nilsson wrote: > > > This isn't a source-level modification, by definition. > > > > And I could argue that my suggestion isn't a source-level modification > > either, or I could argue that your suggestion really is a source-level > > modification, but it seems pointless to argue about this. > > I'm not sure it's pointless when it's about fundamental vocabulary. > > I, and presumably Hans-Peter too, think a source-level modification is > pretty much defined by taking an editor to the source file. If you can use > the unchanged source file, then it's not a source-level modification.
I would agree that "source level transformation" usually refers to a process that converts source into other source (some form of preprocessor). However, I have seen the term abused to also refer to high-level transformations on an abstract syntax tree, with the term justified because the AST has a close correspondence to the source code structure.
