Thesis (M.S. in electrical engineering)--Washington State University, August 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-51).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-175)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1985. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [162]-166.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1986. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [138]-143.

Report (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 74). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-128). Also available via the Internet.

This thesis describes an experiment in developing a true high-level microprogramming language for the Burroughs B1700 series of computers. Available languages for machine description both at a behavioural level and at a microprogramming level are compared and the conclusion drawn that none were suitable for our purpose and that it was necessary to develop a new language which we call SUILVEN. SUILVEN is a true high-level language with no machine-dependent features. It permits the exact specification of the size of abstract machine data areas (via the BITS declaration) and allows the user to associate structure with these data areas (via the TEMPLATE declaration), SUILVEN only permits the use of structured control statements (if-then-else, while-do etc.) - the go to statement is not a feature of the language. SUILVEN is compiled into microcode for the B1700 range of machines. The compiler is written in SNOBOL4 and uses a top-down recursive descent analysis technique, using abstract machines for PASCAL and the locally developed SASL, SUILVEN was compared with other high and low level languages. The conclusions drawn from this comparison were as follows: - (i) SUILVEN was perfectly adequate for describing simple S-machines (ii) SUILVEN lacked certain features for describing higher-level machines (iii) The needs of a machine description language and a microprogram implementation language are different and that it is unrealistic to attempt to combine these in a single language.

Starting from B M Leavenworth's proposal for syntactic macros, we describe an extension language LE with which one may extend a base Language LB for defining a new programming language LP. The syntactic macro processor is designed to minimise the overheads required for implementing the extensions and for carrying the syntax and data type error diagnostics of LB through to the extended language LP. Wherever possible, programming errors are flagged where they are introduced in the source text, whether in a macro definition or in a macro call. LE provides a notation, similar to popular extended forms of BNF, for specifying alternative syntaxes for new linguistic forms in the macro template, a separate assertion clause for imposing context sensitive restrictions on macro calls which cannot be imposed by the template, and a non-procedural language which reflects the nested structure of the template for prescribing conditional text replacement in the macro body. A super user may use LE for introducing new linguistic forms to LB and redefining, replacing or deleting existing forms. The end user is given the syntactic macro in terms of an LP macro declaration with which he may define new forms which are local to the lexical environments in which they are declared in his LP program. Because the macro process is embedded in and directed by a deterministic top down parse, the user can be sure that his extensions are unambiguous. Examples of macro definitions are given using a base language LB which has been designed to be rich enough in syntax and data types for illustrating the problems encountered in extending high level languages. An implementation of a compiler/processor for LB and LE is also described. A survey of previous work in this area, summaries of LE and LB, and a description of the abstract target machine are contained in appendices.

An important property of term rewriting systems is termination: the guarantee that every rewrite sequence is finite. This thesis is concerned with orderings used for proving termination, in particular the Knuth-Bendix and polynomial orderings. First, two methods for generating termination orderings are enhanced. The Knuth-Bendix ordering algorithm incrementally generates numeric and symbolic constraints that are sufficient for the termination of the rewrite system being constructed. The KB ordering algorithm requires an efficient linear constraint solver that detects the nature of degeneracy in the solution space, and for this a revised method of complete description is presented that eliminates the space redundancy that crippled previous implementations. Polynomial orderings are more powerful than Knuth-Bendix orderings, but are usually much harder to generate. Rewrite systems consisting of only a handful of rules can overwhelm existing search techniques due to the combinatorial complexity. A genetic algorithm is applied with some success. Second, a subset of the family of polynomial orderings is analysed. The polynomial orderings on terms in two unary function symbols are fully resolved into simpler orderings. Thus it is shown that most of the complexity of polynomial orderings is redundant. The order type (logical invariant), either r or A (numeric invariant), and precedence is calculated for each polynomial ordering. The invariants correspond in a natural way to the parameters of the orderings, and so the tabulated results can be used to convert easily between polynomial orderings and more tangible orderings. The orderings of order type are two of the recursive path orderings. All of the other polynomial orderings are of order type w or w2 and each can be expressed as a lexicographic combination of r (weight), A (matrix), and lexicographic (dictionary) orderings. The thesis concludes by showing how the analysis extends to arbitrary monadic terms, and discussing possible developments for the future.

The thesis outlines the major problems in the design of high level programming languages. The complexity of these languages has caused the user problems in intellectual manageability. Part of this complexity is caused by lack of generality which also causes loss of power. The maxim of power through simplicity, simplicity through generality is established. To achieve this simplicity a number of ground rules, the principle of abstraction, the principle of correspondence and the principle of data type completeness are discussed and used to form a methodology for programming language design. The methodology is then put into practice and the language S-algol is designed as the first member of a family of languages. The second part of the thesis describes the implementation of the S-algol language. In particular a simple and effective method of compiler construction based on the technique of recursive descent is developed. The method uses a hierarchy of abstractions which are implemented as layers to define the compiler. The simplicity and success of the technique depends on the structuring of the layers and the choice of abstractions. The compiler is itself written in S-algol. An abstract machine to support the S-algol language is then proposed and implemented. This machine, the S-code machine, has two stacks and a heap with a garbage collector and a unique method of procedure entry and exit. A detailed description of the S-code machine for the PDP11 computer is given in the Appendices. The thesis then describes the measurement tools used to aid the implementer and the user. The results of improvements in efficiency when these tools are used on the compiler itself are discussed. Finally, the research is evaluated and a discussion of how it may be extended is given.