COMP 302 Lecture 21: Feb 21 (W8L1): Interpreters
5 Mar 2017
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Document Summary
He will show us the complete implementation of a higher-order functional language. An interpreter reads your program texts and executes it as it reads it. It interprets what you"ve written as execution instructions. Contrast with a compiler, which reads your program"s text and translates it into something that can be executed. The remarkable thing about interpreters is that you can write an interpreter for language x in x. Otherwise, you"d need an infinite chain of languages to interpret the one below it". Today, he will use f# as the implementation language to implement a language like f#. The first and most important idea of today"s lecture is: The effect of a program (expression) is understood in terms of its parts. We will take a large program and understand it by breaking it into its pieces. From understanding its pieces, you should be able to reconstruct the meaning of the entire composite entity.
