Re: "Documentation by paper"

[Robert Dewar <dewar at gnat dot com>]

Peter Barada wrote:

> Another possiblity is to have one file that has the definition of
> terms, as well as bibliography entries for the papers and books that
> the algorithms were derived from.  That way if someone(like me who
> took his last compiler course twenty years ago using the dragon book)
> wanted to learn more about GCC and especially its optimizers, they could
> use the bibliography as a guide to the relavent papers and books.

Another advantage of this approach is that it helps promote uniformity
in the use of terms. Even with definitions and references, it can be
very confusing if one part of the compiler uses a term with a slightly
different definition than another part.