Tombstone diagram

Tombstone diagrams (or T-diagrams) consist of a set of “puzzle pieces” representing languages of language processors and programs. They are used to illustrate and reason about transformations from a source language A to a target language B realised in an implementation language I. They are most commonly found describing complicated processes for bootstrapping[1], porting, and self-compiling of compilers, interpreters, and macro-processors.

See also

References

  1. ^ T diagrams were first introduced for describing bootstrapping and cross-compiling compilers in McKeeman et al. A Compiler Generator (1971). Conway described the broader concept before that with his UNCOL in 1958, to which Bratman added in 1961: H. Bratman, “An alternate form of the ´UNCOL diagram´“, Comm. ACM 4 (March 1961) 3, p. 142. Later on, others, including P.D. Terry, gave an explanation and usage of T-diagrams in their textbooks on the topic of compiler construction. Cf. Terry, 1997, Chapter 3. T-diagrams are also now used to describe client-server interconnectivity on the World Wide Web: cf. Patrick Closhen, et al. 1997: T-Diagrams as Visual Language to Illustrate WWW Technology, Darmstadt University of Technology, Darmstadt, Germany