Re: Multiple (serialized) messages in Objective-C

[Mike Stump <mrs at apple dot com>]

On Wednesday, December 8, 2004, at 06:37  PM, Pupeno wrote:
> Je Merkredo Decembro 1 2004 21:07, Pupeno skribis:
> > I'm learning Objective-C (after having worked a lot of time with C 
> > and C++) and I've found it doesn't have a way to send various 
> > messages to the same object so, I wanted to implement it. I don't 
> > know how capable of that I am, but if I don't try, I'll never will.
> > I've never even read gcc's source code... being that it's so big and 
> > that I
> > have never worked in any kind of compiler, I bet that I will totally 
> > lost.
> > So, can anyone give me some kind a guidance in this task ?

gcc is not best suited for people that need guidance.  Works better for 
self starters that just jump right in, find the code they are 
interested in, and just make it do what they want.  Helps to already 
know gdb, to have read the relevant parts of the compiler documentation 
including gcc/doc/*.texi as well as gcc/*.[ch], gcc/*/*.[ch] and 
friends, know what 
yacc/make/sh/autoconf/automake/libtool/dejagnu/expect/tcl/awk is and 
how they work...  :-)

> > I really want to do, but I don't think I can do it alone (I wouldn't 
> > even know how to install gcc

make install, and this is covered in the documentation.  We shy away 
from helping anyone that doesn't read the documentation on this list.  
make install is pretty basic.  If you need help with that, then you'll 
want to read large swaths of our docs first and play around a bit to 
get a feel for it.

> > and test it without install it for my whole system,

This too is covered in the docs.

> > or in which branch of gcc I should work).

As is this.

So, if you are serious, check out the web site, find the getting gcc 
source documentation, get the source, read it, find the parts you are 
interested in most, read them, build it up, install it, run the 
testsuite, fire up gdb, set a break point near where you want, watch 
what the compiler does... and then change it to do something fun, 
compile it up and see if it does...  :-)

You can try and add a builtin that does what you want, and then add the 
syntax of your choice, or maybe you want to accept the syntax first, 
and then build it up.

If you you discover you don't have sh/make/cc, then you'll want to go 
explore how to get those things...  Those types of questions aren't 
suitable for this list.

This list is for the type of questions like, I'm trying to use 
objc_cons_method, but the second argument is just too cryptic and the 
documention is lacking, how do I create one of those?