Re: Fun with C

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

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"Elias Salom�o Helou Neto" <eshneto@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:d169b543-eed4-4a0a-a295-e391c198463e@j9g2000prj.googlegroups.com...
On Apr 17, 8:43 pm, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:
...
>> I must have been doing something really wrong all those years,
>> becuase the only way I learned a new language was by
>> programming in it.
>
>Without even reading a book about it? You are doing things terribly
>wrong. Of course programming is the best way to learn, but not without
>a good book to read while practicing.

There aren't always books to read. We wrote a partial Ada *compiler* back in 
1980 from a description circulated by our professor (Janus/Ada originally 
started in a compiler construction course). The only book that we had (and 
we didn't get that until near the end of the class when we had already 
decided to commercialize it) was the 1980 Ada Reference Manual. I'm pretty 
sure that we had already converted the entire compiler into Ada code (so it 
could compile itself) before we saw any of the early Ada textbooks. (The 
Pyle textbook that we distributed with the compiler didn't come out until 
late 1981, I think.)

That was OK, Ada wasn't that different than Pascal which we both already 
knew well.

I recall being asked on several occassions why we were able to build an Ada 
compiler is so much less time and manpower than everyone else. And there was 
no secret -- we used Ada and probably didn't spend as much time debugging as 
others.

                                         Randy.