Attribute grammars provide a formal declarative notation for describing the semantics and translation of programming languages. Describing any real programming language is a significant software engineering challenge. From a software engineering viewpoint, current notations for attribute grammars have two flaws: tedious repetition of essentially the same attribute computations is inevitable, and the various components of the description cannot be decomposed into modules - they must be merged (and hence closely coupled) with the syntax specification. This paper describes a tool that generates attribute grammars from pattern-oriented specifications. These specifications can be grouped according to the separation of concerns arising from individual aspects of the compilation process. Implementation and use of the attribute grammar generate MAGGIE is described.

This paper describes the motivation for a set of intertask communication primitives, the hardware support of these primitives, the architecture used in the Sylvan project which studies these issues, and the experience gained from various experiments conducted in this area. We start by describing how these facilities have been implemented in a multiprocessor configuration that utilizes a shared backplane. This configuration represents a single node in the system. The latter part of the paper discusses a distributed multiple node system and the extension of the primitives that are used in this expanded environment.