Compiler development projects, which are designed and taught in compiler course, allow students to practice and absorb valuable amount of experience and techniques in developing compilers. However, both instructors and students face difficulties as th...
Compiler development projects, which are designed and taught in compiler course, allow students to practice and absorb valuable amount of experience and techniques in developing compilers. However, both instructors and students face difficulties as they are often limited by insufficient hands-on time during course of an academic year along with a relatively high level of technologies involved when dealing with compilers. As well, most compiler’s target systems use interpreter-based technologies which are rather limited in drawing student’s attention. As a result compiler courses often end up being more of a theoretical course than practical.
This paper presents a new integrated development environment (IDE) that will help overcome aforementioned difficulties and allow students to obtain both theoretical and practical knowledge more efficiently. The development environment includes a reference compiler with Lego?? Mindstorms?? NXT Robots as the target system, compiler development tool, target language test tool, and code generation visualizer. It is developed as a plug-in for the popular Eclipse IDE which enables easy access and great expandability. This integrated development environment allows students to understand compilers better and start their development faster.