From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 24 May 93 22:03:51 GMT From: cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!howland. reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.kei.com!news.byu.edu!cwis.isu.edu!fcom .cc.utah.edu!val@ucbvax.Berkeley (Val Kartchner) Subject: Re: verdix kisses off Ada Message-ID: <1993May24.220351.22467@fcom.cc.utah.edu> List-Id: Michael Feldman (mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu) wrote: : In article <9575@verdix.verdix.com> brucej@verdix.com (Bruce Jones) writes: : >In article <1993May21.162150.20535@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Mich ael Feldman) writes: : >>A dollar can only be spent once. If the resources aren't there to build big ger : >>Ada markets, how are they available to build C/C++ compilers? : > : >Mike, its not just a question of dollars, the reason is that the resources : >are different. The resources needed to build a C/C++ compiler is a team : >of highly skilled compiler engineers. Verdix has such a team. You can't : >just go buy these people, you have to build the team slowly over time. : Oh, that's certainly true. But each person-hour can be spent only once. : Each hour invested in building a C or C++ compiler is one that's _not_ : spent developing Ada stuff whose performance and reliability is such that : people who are spending their own money will buy it. Each person-hour can only be spent once, but that one hour can be reused. What I mean by this is that the same principles go into building a compiler for both Ada and C++. (Other languages could also be included, but this is a sufficiently large group to demonstrate my point.) As demonstrated by the GNAT project, even if the frontend of a compiler is written from scratch, the same backend(s) can be used. These backends include code-generators, optimizers, and debuggers. All of DEC's compiled languages on VAX/VMS use the same debugger. It is even rumored (because I haven't had sufficient confirmation) that all of these languages use the same code-generators and optimizers. I've heard that since C++ has added exceptions, GNU (not the GNAT team) is in the process of rewriting the C++ compiler backend to support this. The work of the GNAT team may or may not be rolled back into the backend by GNU. (I'd appreciate hearing about this from a well informed source. Is the co-director of GNAT still listening?) It takes skilled persons to write commercial compilers, but they don't have to write code that is used for just one language/project. This is the point of reuse. Nevertheless, Verdix may end up selling their C++ compiler for a lower price than their Ada compiler. It may be as simple (is anything in economics simple :-) ?) as being able to spread the development costs over a larger expected sales volume. -=:[ VAL ]:=- -- |================= #include ================///=============| | "AMIGA: The computer for the creative mind" (tm) Commodore /// Weber State | | "Macintosh: The computer for the rest of us"(tm) Apple \\\/// University | |== "I think, therefore I AMiga" -- val@csulx.weber.edu ==\///= Ogden UT USA =|