Thanks for your suggestion, that's a good idea. Any specific ideas about how to do it? After all, the code/design is evolving all the time.
On Friday, February 26, 2021 at 8:43:07 AM UTC+8 skinne...@gmail.com wrote: > Ian, I very much appreciate your taking the time to provide the history > here. > I am almost inclined to suggest that the OP create a design document much > the way an engineer creates an as-built design before creating a new design. > For my part, I would be willing to assist the OP on an occasional basis in > trying to figure some things out just because I enjoy puzzles and I think > that these efforts to learn will pay great dividends in the future. > > On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 8:56:01 AM UTC-6 Ian Lance Taylor wrote: > >> On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 10:24 PM messi...@gmail.com >> <messi...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > I'm trying to read golang compiler source code and now have come to the >> middle of syntax analysis: just finished parser.fileOrNil, next step is >> noder.node(). >> > >> > So far everything is fine, both lex and syntax tree parsing is easy to >> understand. But after that part, it feels more and more difficult, in order >> to make my learning process smoother, I think I need to ask some help/tips >> from the community. >> > >> > Currently I'm doing it this way: >> > 1. Figure out the main phases and the role of each one. >> > 2. For each phase, figure out related data structures firstly, like >> interfaces and structs >> > 3. Read the source code of the phase, figure out the main logic >> > 3. Guess, and use UT to verify >> > 4. Use git log to see the author's original thoughts >> > >> > Problems I'm facing: >> > 1. Can't find enough docs, especially official design docs >> > 2. Comment is not enough in code repo, I believe it's enough for >> compiler developers, but not for beginners like me >> > >> > This makes it very difficult to understand the design thoughts, in some >> cases you have to read the source code line by line for its purpose, but >> still don't know why it's implemented like that in the end. >> > >> > So my questions are: >> > 1. Is there a place I can find the design docs for go compiler design? >> > 2. What's the most productive way to learn the source code? Especially >> from the perspective of go compiler developers. >> > >> > Thanks for any helps/suggestions/tips :) >> >> >> Unfortunately there are no design docs. >> >> The most productive approach is the one you are already doing. Feel >> free to ask questions on this mailing list about why things are >> written the way they are. >> >> That said, the history of the compiler is that it was originally >> written in C and based on the Inferno C compiler. Ken Thompson >> modified that compiler to compile Go code, but the compiler was itself >> still written in C. Several years later Russ Cox wrote a tool to >> translate the C code into Go code. That Go code was naturally not >> very idiomatic. A lot of it has been rewritten, but some still looks >> like C code. A couple of years after that Keith Randall rewrote the >> entire backend to use an SSA representation. At some point Robert >> Griesemer rewrote the entire parser. Matthew Dempsky and Russ Cox >> rewrote a lot of the frontend. Right now Robert Griesemer and Rob >> Findley are rewriting the type checker. Many other people have >> written significant components of the compiler, replacing earlier >> components. >> >> My point in providing this partial history is that many questions >> about "why does the compiler work this way" have the answer "because >> of the long and complicated history of the code base." It is not the >> case that a group of people sat down and designed a clean and elegant >> Go compiler. As far as I know nobody has ever written a Go compiler >> from scratch. >> >> Ian >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "golang-nuts" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to golang-nuts+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/golang-nuts/3e1f96e2-d933-4d35-9c8f-3cf6837e3daan%40googlegroups.com.
