GMac: The Next Generation (2 of 2)
Planning for the next generation of GMac began in August 2011. I started to design the new version of GMac from scratch by reading significant parts of Terence Parr’s book “Language Implementation Patterns”, Robert W. Sebesta’s classic book “Concepts of Programming Languages”, and the second edition of the bestseller Dragon Book “Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools”. I had learned many lessons during developing the first GMac prototype. These books provided a solid conceptual framework for designing the new version of GMac containing all the lessons I’d learned before.
In the previous post, I talked about the first part of my journey developing GMac, the fascinating discoveries I made, and the difficulties I faced along the way. In this final part, I explain the design decisions I made for GMac and how I came to select them, in addition to the developments I hope to make in the future.
