A declarative approach to extensible interface compilation
Authors
Nicholas FitzRoy-Dale
School of Computer Science and Engineering
University of New South Wales
Sydney 2052 Australia
NICTA, Sydney,
Australia
Abstract
In microkernel-based operating systems, source-to-source compilers generate code to ease the process of marshaling data for communication via message passing. However, the rule of thumb for these interface compilers seems to be "simple, extensible, efficient output — pick any one". I argue that the major cause of extensibility-limiting complexity in interface compilers comes from the source-to-source transformation code itself, and this complexity is primarily a result of the difficulties inherent in supporting multiple targets. I describe a specification-based approach for generating interface compilers, discuss the advantages of such an approach over a procedural approach, and outline a proposed implementation, with particular reference to the advantages of a specification-based approach to interface compilation in terms of flexibility and extensibility.
BibTeX Entry
@inproceedings{FitzRoyDale_07,
title = {A declarative approach to extensible interface compilation},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Microkernels for Embedded Systems},
author = {Nicholas FitzRoy-Dale},
year = {2007},
month = {Jan},
address = {Sydney, Australia}
}