Re: High Level Assemblers vs. High Level Language Compilers

On Sat, 23 Mar 2002 02:20:42 UTC, fjh@cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson) wrote: WEEKDAY


>"Randall Hyde" <rhyde@cs.ucr.edu> writes:
>
>>>> since C is really just a very very high level macro assembler.
>>
>>I totally agree with Alfred. C is a terrible macro assembler simply
>>because it's macro facilities are so weak. C (and derivatives) would
>>be a much better language if CPP were beefed up considerably (think
>>Dylan rather than GCC). However, the current trend is to avoid using
>>macros entirely in HLLs because of "semantic issues" (i.e., macros
>>don't behave like functions) that tend to confuse weaker programmers.
>
>I think part of the problem is that debugger support for C macros in
>most existing systems varies from weak to non-existent.
>
>A really good debugger would allow the "step" command to step through
>macro expansion.
You would get that if the compiler expanded macros with the
proper #line information although you wouldn't see
built symbols.

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