Re: Opinions and experiences using LCC Win32

Chris Fraser, then in our group at Bell Labs, forwarded me some mail
(dated 2 Mar 1994) that was sent to the lcc-requests list. I saved it
(and I assume he sent it) because I was his manager at the time. It
was from a guy named John Carmack at a company called ID Software.
Without quoting the whole letter, it said that LCC was neat. He'd
looked at GCC. About LCC, he said


  "I had seen a reference to LCC
    in comp.compilers, so I thought I would check it out....
    Wow. An 11k line ansi compiler. I am impressed.
    The documentation and example code was clearly
    structured, and I got everything generating proper
    code in about three days. A couple more days of
    bug chasing and optimizing, and I have a damn good tool.
    This has saved me SO much time (it was fun, too).


    If the authors are at all into PC games, they can have
    a couple free copies with my compliments!"


As I said, at the time I got the mail, I just saved it. Over the
following summer, the DOOM virus hit our lab, but I didn't make the
mental connection. However, in the fall, as performance review time
approached, I began digging up contributions and found the letter
again. This time the connection clicked, and I sent mail to Carmack
thanking him for his LCC encomium. I rapidly received the ftp
password for gathering the beta DOOM II.


Satisfying interchange for all concerned (though of course a lot of
time was lost to DOOM and followons....)


Dennis
--

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.