[ebon-discuss] Welcome to ebon-discuss and update on progress.

[Joseph R. K. <ki...@ac...>]

First, welcome to the EBON-discuss mailing list.  Thanks for joining us.

Second, Tom and Kim, you probably should signed up on the list(s) to keep 
track of what is going on around here.  Goto 
http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=33004 for more information.

Finally, in brief, as posted on the project page:

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Date: 2001-08-23 23:41
Summary:EBON scanner is complete.

I've rewritten the scanner to use the tokens generated by the grammar 
specification. The new scanner passes all test cases from the text as well 
as my two system specifications (Monitoring and Connector). Now I'm moving 
on to the parser to restructure the grammar rules for the new scanner.

--

BON is a large language.  Just getting the rules typed in (first-pass) from 
the text took me several nights.  Currently the grammar has just over 300 
rules.  I expect that debugging the grammar will take a few nights. 
Checking for conformance and tuning will be another few nights.

My current test suites (ebon/docs/testsuite and ebon/docs/examples) account 
for nearly 1800 lines of textual BON.  While this sounds like a lot, it 
doesn't provide full coverage by any means.

My plan, of course, is to specify the EBON toolsuite in EBON, thus getting 
better coverage and eating our own.  After the parser is done I'll write 
the specifications for the scanner and parser.  Then I will write the 
specification for the meta-object graph data-structures prior to starting a 
implementation.  See the tasks on the SF.net pages for more information.

If any of you (a) have an interest in learning textual BON better, (b) wish 
to contribute test EBON specifications, and/or (c) have existing BON 
specifications that can be release to the public, please consider 
contributing to help us get better coverage of the language.

Finally, note that I'm fully using all the features of SourceForge, unlike 
the vast majority of the projects hosted there.  In particular, tasks are 
documented and tracked, I am watching the tracker and forums for feedback, 
bug reports, etc., developers can support patches via the website, etc.  If 
I'm not using a piece of SourceForge functionality I'll turn it off so it 
doesn't get in our way.

Best,
Joe Kiniry
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Joseph R. Kiniry                    http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~kiniry/
California Institute of Technology        ID 78860581      ICQ 4344804