Compiler Design for Education Pt. 2.: Accessible Tools

Fun fact: My intentions were not to write a follow-up to my previous entry Compiler Design for Education, which I have now appended with Pt. 1.: Anatomy of Computer Languages, but given the much feedback I have received from my reading fans (zero in total), I just had to.

Jokes aside, hey, here we are again with another publication from our great educator, Ariel Ortiz (I don’t say this with flattery in mind).

So, while reading this publication, I sighed, for I forgot to take into account something quite important when advocating for Compiler Design courses in education: its tools, and how accessible they are.

Just as how a medical student needs a corpse, a limb, or at least a tissue to learn how to dissect and perform surgeries for research or whatever, a student needs a platform where to develop and research a compiler of interest, be it someone else’s or one of her making.

I believe Ariel Ortiz nailed it on this one: the web is that platform. It is easily accessible, and relatively easier to develop and deploy into than native apps that, of course, assume a whole set of SOC architectural instructions, operating systems, and environments that may not be as easy to get hold and around of. I can only thank web advocates who for so long have fought for a standardized tool that must work across all platforms, and have successfully defeated technological giants who, on their purely profit-generating and monopolistic temptations, at least once upon a time had sought to appropriate the net—our net.

If anything, we should learn to appreciate the tools already at our disposal, and make use of them. Defend them for, if not, great opportunities such as exporting educational content and knowledge to that one platform most accessible to anyone then stay at impossibility. This involves fighting for our digital rights, standardized protocols and technologies, and a greater comprehension of what the net is and could be.

Let no one break the Internet. 

 

Ortiz, A. (2010, March 10). Building Server-Side Web Language Processors. SIGCSE’08. Retrieved from: http://arielortiz.info/publicaciones/weblang.pdf