[gobo-eiffel-develop] Introspection, persistence, debugger

[Wolfgang J. <wj...@so...>]

Hi Eric,

I would like to contribute the following
features/parts to the GEC compiler:
- introspection (in particular, class INTERNAL)
 and persistence closure (in particular, class STORABLE),
 see persist.pdf
- debugger, see debug.pdf

In the course of recent years I implemented those parts
for the SE-1.* compiler (not integrated into the
official release), and the last version is almost
completely written in Eiffel. Thus, it should be
possible to integrate the stuff into the GEC as well.
The integration of introspection and persistence closure
(at least the core parts) seems to be straight forward
whereas integrating the debugger is much more involved.

Most of the development still to be done will be my work
(help about the meaning of existing compiler classes
and their features may be necessary from time to time).
Moreover, the development is rather separated from
the main lines of the development of the compiler,
therefore, conflicts should be rare. On the other hand,
things may take some time since it's not my main work.

What do you think about the topic?

PS:
I tried to add descriptions of the stuff in PDF format
but the mail got too large (about 270kB needed for
gzipped file but only 65 kB allowed).

-- 
Wolfgang Jansen
University of Potsdam, Germany
mailto: wj...@so...