From: marlow@sys.uea.ac.uk (K. Marlow PG)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Oh no ! More .....
Date: 2 Oct 92 08:46:07 GMT
Organization: UEA School of Information Systems, Norwich, UK.

kortink@cs.utwente.nl (John Kortink) writes:

>Gavin.Flower@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Gavin Flower) writes :

>>In article <1992Oct1.103327.26336@cs.utwente.nl> kortink@cs.utwente.nl
>>(John Kortink) writes:
[...]
>>>For a C source, an entirely new C compiler would have to be written.
>>
>>The compiler would need modification, rather than an entirely new one
>>produced.

>What bollocks. What developer can go about making 'modifications' to an
>entire compiler of which he doesn't even have the source ? We would all
>have to wait for a new version of the Norcroft compiler to take advantage
>of the new features.

  John..  I'll write this as politely as possible... Get A Life! (CC SW 1992)
No major computer supplier nowadays would release a machine without a 
C compiler available for developers *before* the machine was released. Unless
its something like a Sega.  Computer manufacturers know that they need
software to run on their new machines or it ain't going to sell.

>>I thought this would have been obvious!  Do you *really*
>>need a lesson in elementary compiler design?

>No, I don't. I guess you are looking at things rather strangely.

  If his veiwpoint is strange then yours is very weird ;-)

[...]

>B : *Has* to wait for a new Norcroft C compiler taking advantage of (usually
>*all*) the new features, which takes a lot of time. Only then, after a
>considerable time, can he recompile his code. In the meantime he can't do
>anything.

  John, if he has wait at all, then the computer supplier has made a big
mistake.. a really grand one.  Also the time taken to change a compiler
to a slightly different processor is not all that much, only the code generator
& optimiser (peep hole or not) need to be added to, 2 to 4 days work at the
outside for any good programmer.  Anyway from your earlier message what makes 
you think the C compiler is written in ARM?

[...]
>These CC apps were part of the original argument. They prove that ARM code
>reigns supreme over any C code, given the extra development time.

  Yep, exactly & the pretty good chance that one will miss the product
window.

>Developers just chicken out of ARM code because of the extra time taken and
>end up with bulky and slower code. CC, which must be an intelligent bunch,
>recognized that in the end they will have the last laugh and have a few,
>but massively supreme applications which are much faster and smaller, of
>which we all know the multiple advantages, direct or indirect.

  I hope for their sakes then that Acorn don't bring out a machine with a
radically different processor, as there would be alot of late nights at CC.

  Also I seem to remember them going for ARM directly because they didn't 
like the C compiler at that time, for which I don't blame them as it isn't 
comparable against the current one.

>I think it's a sad state of affairs that the low quality of a lot software
>is so much the result of short-term economics.

	Er, it also results because people tend to buy low quality s/w &
not complain. i.e if people didn't buy the stuff it wouldn't exist.

>And still people wonder why CC is so enormously succesful ?
  Large profits I think, isn't it?


	Keith Marlow
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