User talk:Gfis/Frank DeRemer

Contested deletion

This article should not be speedily deleted for lack of asserted importance because there was no link to Frank DeRemer (references to him appeared in RED) and for Frank DeRemer's importance in the then emerging technology of programming language recognition and translation to computer-executable code (compilers).

Although not all compilers utilize the SLR(1) or LALR(1) grammars which DeRemer first defined in his MIT doctoral dissertation, SLR(1) and LALR(1) tools are now an integral part of every usable operating system distribution, and a great many commercial quality products were developed using these concepts and tools, and most, if not all modern computer science programs incorporate at least LALR(1), if not also SLR(1), as an integral part of their core curricula.

Although Donald Knuth's LR(1) grammars can recognize ANY deterministic contest-free grammar, LR(1) recognizers are impractically large in their table size. DeRemer's LALR(1) and SLR(1) recognizers are practical, even on small minicomputers or microprocessors, and the restrictions on the associated grammar are not that great, making for a very practical result.

DeRemer's doctoral dissertation was named one of the 50 most important papers in computer science during 1979 to 1999.