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Computer Science/164/HW3

224 bytes removed, 06:58, 19 December 2009
Tweaked implementation section
==Decide on the implementation==
Choose two alternative implementations, and compare them along these aspects. For each aspect, write a paragraph. Your two approaches may be identical in some aspects.
* frontend:
:The decision to go with a parsed input rather than an embedded DSL was not one we made lightly. The primary advantage of the embedded DSL is simplicity; it doesn't require us to go through the trouble of writing a grammar for the input. However, that simplicity comes at the price of flexibility; the parsed input can be specified in any format we choose, whereas the input of an embedded DSL must fit into the syntax of the parent language. Considering that the main goal of this language is to provide a clean and simple syntax, restricting ourselves to the syntax of the parent language would clearly be counterproductive. We decided to use the JS/CC parser generator, since it provides a simple online interface, supports grammars similar to those used in CS164, and outputs a stand-alone JavaScript parser file that can be included in our distribution as a library. This parser process the input to the program and outputs JavaScript objects for the interpreter.
* interpreter/compiler:
:The interpretation is fairly straightforward; the interpreter goes through the object representation of the input, generating the appropriate CSS and HTML as it goes.
* debugging: How will you debug the implementation of the language?
:Our distribution is packaged with an HTML page with a text box. You can type an input program into the text box, and the output navigation bar is displayed below. If there is an error, the error message is displayed instead of the navigation bar.
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