Melting Ice Technology - Revision history

Peter gummer: /* Compiled versus interpreted */

2007-06-15T01:25:54Z

‎Compiled versus interpreted

Peter gummer: /* Introduction */

2007-06-15T01:19:18Z

‎Introduction

Manus at 10:06, 11 April 2007

2007-04-11T10:06:41Z

Paulb: Added contractions

2007-02-06T22:25:37Z

Added contractions

Paulb: Missed one

2007-02-06T22:24:56Z

Missed one

Paulb: Changed EiffelStudio to Eiffel compiler

2007-02-06T22:24:27Z

Changed EiffelStudio to Eiffel compiler

Paulb: Changed smallness to footprint. Changed EiffelStudio to Eiffel compiler

2007-02-06T22:23:10Z

Changed smallness to footprint. Changed EiffelStudio to Eiffel compiler

Konradm: /* The interpreter and the byte code */

2007-01-30T10:51:05Z

‎The interpreter and the byte code

Konradm: /* Introduction */

2007-01-29T18:16:52Z

‎Introduction

Konradm at 13:30, 16 January 2007

2007-01-16T13:30:05Z

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 ====Compiled versus interpreted====
-The Eiffel compiler was designed with the following principle in mind: When a programmer makes a small change he expects a short recompilation time, when he makes a big change he will accept some waiting time.
+The Eiffel compiler was designed with the following principle in mind: when a programmer makes a small change he expects a short recompilation time, and when he makes a big change he will accept some waiting time.
 Traditionally, the fastest programming environments (in terms of recompilation time) were interpreted languages (like VisualBasic). Unfortunately interpreted languages are not competitive performance wise.
-The designers of Eiffel compiler circumnavigated the trade off by taking the best of both approaches. Thus, in workbench mode the Eiffel compiler is half compiler and half interpreter. The technology behind this is called melting ice.
+The designers of the Eiffel compiler circumnavigated the trade off by taking the best of both approaches. Thus, in workbench mode the Eiffel compiler is half compiler and half interpreter. The technology behind this is called ''melting ice''.
-An Eiffel system compiled in workbench mode consists of both frozen and melted code. Frozen code is code, that is translated to C code. Melted code is not yet translated to C code but to a form of byte code that has to be interpreted. This byte code is called Eiffel byte code (EBC).
+An Eiffel system compiled in workbench mode consists of both frozen and melted code. Frozen code is code that is translated to C code. Melted code is not yet translated to C code but to a form of byte code that has to be interpreted. This byte code is called Eiffel byte code (EBC).
 This yields two requirements to the Eiffel runtime. It needs both to be able to execute the EBC and to handle calls from frozen code into melted code and vice versa.

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 * It supports precompiles.
-Finalized code has only two advantages, footprint and speed. Whereas the former contributes to the latter due too better cache efficiency. Finalized code can only be debugged at the C level. This article focuses on the workbench mode of the Eiffel compiler
+Finalized code has only two advantages, footprint and speed. A small footprint contributes to speed due to better cache efficiency. Finalized code can only be debugged at the C level. This article focuses on the workbench mode of the Eiffel compiler.
 ====Compiled versus interpreted====

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Category:Compiler]]
-{{Warning|'''Warning''': Article under development}}
+{{UnderConstruction}}
 ====Introduction====
 There are two main criteria for any good compiler. Both the compilation and the compiled program need to be fast. There is a trade off, the more time a compiler takes to make optimizations, the faster the compiled program is and the slower the compilation process becomes.

@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
 ====The interpreter and the byte code====
-The EiffelStudio byte code interpreter is a stack machine. The byte code itself is not very different from .NET byte code or Java Byte Code.
+The EBC interpreter is a stack machine. The byte code itself is not very different from .NET byte code or Java Byte Code.
-This article won't explain the byte codes. This is partially done in [[Byte Code]]. To give a general idea the Fibonacci feature and its EiffelStudio byte code are shown:
+This article won't explain the byte codes. This is partially done in [[Byte Code]]. To give a general idea the Fibonacci feature and its EBC are shown:
 {|border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="center"

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 The designers of Eiffel compiler circumnavigated the trade off by taking the best of both approaches. Thus, in workbench mode the Eiffel compiler is half compiler and half interpreter. The technology behind this is called melting ice.
-An Eiffel system compiled in workbench mode consists of both frozen and melted code. Frozen code is code, that is translated to C code. Melted code is not yet translated to C code but to a form of byte code that has to be interpreted. This byte code is called EiffelStudio byte code (EBC).
+An Eiffel system compiled in workbench mode consists of both frozen and melted code. Frozen code is code, that is translated to C code. Melted code is not yet translated to C code but to a form of byte code that has to be interpreted. This byte code is called Eiffel byte code (EBC).
-This yields two requirements to the Eiffel runtime. It needs both to be able to execute the Eiffel Byte Code and to handle calls from frozen code into melted code and vice versa.
+This yields two requirements to the Eiffel runtime. It needs both to be able to execute the EBC and to handle calls from frozen code into melted code and vice versa.
 ====The interpreter and the byte code====

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 Fortunately the need for fast compilation and fast compiled programs occurs at different times during the development cycle. When the developer is incrementally writing and testing a program he needs short compilation time to be productive. At the end, when his work is thoroughly tested and ready to ship there can be a slower compilation that generates a very fast delivery.
-EiffelStudio exploits this by providing two basic compilation modes: workbench and finalized mode.
+EiffelStudio's compiler, known from here on in as "Eiffel compiler", exploits this by providing two basic compilation modes: workbench and finalized mode.
 The C code generated by the compiler looks different for workbench and finalized mode. The terms workbench code and finalized code are used to refer to the corresponding generated C code.
@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 * It supports precompiles.
-Finalized code has only two advantages, smallness and speed. Whereas the former contributes to the latter due too better cache efficiency. Finalized code can only be debugged at the C level. This article focuses on the workbench mode of EiffelStudio
+Finalized code has only two advantages, footprint and speed. Whereas the former contributes to the latter due too better cache efficiency. Finalized code can only be debugged at the C level. This article focuses on the workbench mode of the Eiffel compiler
 ====Compiled versus interpreted====

@@ Line 80: / Line 80: @@
+|
 <code>
 : BC_HOOK 4
 : BC_ARG 1