Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[David Starner <dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu>]

On Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:28:21 -0400, Marin David Condic <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[> wrote:
> also process C code for you without modification. The gcc compiler has a
> multitude of front ends (see http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc.html) which
> includes support for C, C++, Objective C, Chill, Fortran, and Java. Front
> ends exist for Pascal, Mercury, Cobol and Modula-2 as well.

You mean Modula-3, don't you? I've never heard of a Modula-2 frontend.
 
> The problem is, of course, getting any/all of these front ends together in
> the same place at the same time and making a binary that will recognize
> whatever language you want to compile. In principle, it could be done, but
> in practice I don't think anyone has. I don't know why this is. Too
> difficult? No interest? Insufficient utility?

It can be fairly difficult to move a frontend from one version of the
backend to another. The Pascal frontend people still haven't ported it
to GCC 3.x, and don't seem terribly interested in doing the cleanup work
to get it merged. ACT apparently has a mostly-working frontend for GCC
3.1, but hasn't made it publically available yet. Mercury and Modula-3
developers don't want to assign copyright to the FSF. The Mercury
frontend code is shared with other Mercury backends, making it hairer to
get in GCC CVS. Modula-3 isn't designed to be one of many frontends; it
would need a huge design overhaul to work in your scenario. Chill (which
was never ported to GCC 3.0) just doesn't have any support. There's no
really working Cobol frontend. 

Anyway, where is the interest? You can do pretty much anything you want
with the Pascal and Chill frontends based on gcc 2.95, Ada on gcc 2.8.2,
Fortran, et al, on 3.0, and the Modula-3 backend on its builtin backend.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org
"I saw a daemon stare into my face into my face, and an angel touch my 
breast; each one softly calls my name . . . the daemon scares me less."
- "Disciple", Stuart Davis