Re: Thompson's Plan 9 C compiler

[From comp.arch -John]


In article <PCG.91Aug11154854@aberdb.aber.ac.uk>, pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:
> Now, now, let's not get carried away. He has done a clone of Turbo
> Pascal, or of the small/fast Pascal compiler from ETH.


I think this is does a major disservice to Thompson's work. I'm not that
familiar with the ETH compiler, but Turbo Pascal is a horrible example. Not
only was it for a single architecture, but it let that architecture show
through to the user level. It didn't even implement a full Pascal... it was
a subset (no standard Pascal I/O, for example) with extensions. The Thompson
compiler is extremely hardware-independent and generates good 68020, MIPS,
and Crisp code. It also implements full ANSI standard C, not a subset.


Oh yes, not only was the compiler 8086 dependent, it was also restricted
to small model on the 8086. Programs larger than 64K had to use overlays.


> none of these things has exactly been
> ground breaking work, they are simply well engineered developments of
> well known technology.


Isn't that ground-breaking itself? Particularly in contrast to things like
OS/2... let alone the gross disasters that MS-DOS and the Mac system software
have grown into?
--
Peter da Silva; Ferranti International Controls Corporation; +1 713 274 5180;
Sugar Land, TX 77487-5012
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