Talk:Control-flow analysis

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It Appears That Hecht Coined Control Flow Analysis in 1977

The article claims that the term Control Flow Analysis was coined by Olin Shivers Neil D. Jones in the 1980s. I don't think this is true because I have a book published in 1977 called "Flow Analysis of Computer Programs" and written by Matthew S. Hecht which defines Control Flow Analysis on page 4 as "... the encoding of pertinent, possible program 'control flow structure' or 'flow of control' for an ensuing data flow analysis." Danking00 (talk) 15:11, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Any compiler book has citation to papers before claimed as "firsts" in this article, although those guys may have coined the term. But wp:secondary sources should be used to ascertain such claims to priority in terminology, which isn't even that important compared to priority in the actual techniques. 188.27.81.64 (talk) 21:35, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The CFA term is used for completely different analyses in the functional and imperative programming worlds. Which probably explains the massive confusion in this article, including as to who termed it. It's probably true that guys listed in the article "coined" the term, as in [re/mis]appropriated it for their use in functional programming... The PLDI10 paper, which I've added to the external links, sheds some light on the issue. The kind of CFA done in functional programming is called points-to analysis in the imperative/OOP world. 188.27.81.64 (talk) 23:43, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite needed

Also, this article consists mostly of irrelevancies. None of the core material that a compiler class would cover under this heading is even mentioned. See the external link I added for comparison, if a compiler book is too expensive for you... 188.27.81.64 (talk) 21:37, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Besides, this article doesn't even try to distinguish when it's talking about intra-procedural vs. inter-procedural CFA and makes sweeping claims that absolutely don't apply to both. 188.27.81.64 (talk) 22:22, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]