Software Engineering Research Project Description

Last Updated on 06/11/2004

Contact Info

  • Andrew Deren <andrew@adersoftware.com>
  • http://www.adersoftware.com/se690/

    Project Type

    Project Title: Interpreter For Zoom Language

    Abstract

    Interpreters have been used by programmers since 1950s; not long after computer scientists and mathematicians started developing programming languages. They became more popular and important in recent years by introduction of scripting languages in many popular applications and for programming dynamic content on web pages. Interpreters also form significant part of a programming language design life cycle and can be effectively used as prototypes for future compiled languages. Currently the distinction between interpreted and compiled program has been blurred by introduction of just in time compilers. Zoom interpreter was developed as a prototype for Zoom-E language and for testing new zoom language features. It has also been effectively used by zoom tools for executing statements and expression.
    Zoom is a very large project worked on by several people. My part of this project was to develop an interpreter for the zoom language. The final deliverable includes the interpreter engine and a small GUI interface for execution. I was also involved in the design of some of the zoom language constructs and implementation of zoom standard library including some of the collection classes.

    Current Status

    completed.

    Milestones

    Documents

  • Zoom Home page

    References

    1. David A. Watt & Deryck F. Brown. Programming Language Processors in Java. Prentice Hall, 2000.
    2. Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, Jeffrey D. Ullman. Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools. Addison-Wesley,1988.
    3. Ravi Sethi. Programming Languages, Concepts & Constructs. Addison-Wesley, 1996.
    4. Randy M. Kaplan. Constructing Language Processors for Little Languages. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994.
    5. O.G. Kakde. Algorithms for Compiler Design. Charles Rivera Media, 2003.
    6. Keith D. Cooper & Linda Torczon. Engineering a Compiler. Morgan Kaufmann, 2004.
    7. Andrew W. Appel. Modern Compiler Implementation in Java. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
    8. Bill Blunden. Virtual Machine Design and Implementation in C/C++. Worldware Publishing Inc., 2002.
    9. Steven John Metsker. Building Parsers in Java. Addison-Wesley, 2001.