Managing facts and resources with the Pica IDE infrastructure library.

Classical compiler architecture is centred around producing object code in a batch-oriented fashion. Integrated development environments (IDEs) present new challenges to the language implementer: information should be (almost) instantly available, and should be dynamically updated and presented even for incorrect code, as the user is editing. To increase responsiveness, it may be necessary to compute information incrementally, and to make use of multicore processors. An existing compiler cannot easily be adapted to provide IDE services without impacting the user experience; typically, IDE developers have to develop their own language frontends particularly targeted at IDE use. In this paper, we discuss the design of a library, Pica, for managing resources and information and easing IDE integration, and show how it is applied in the Eclipse IDE for the experimental Magnolia programming language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]