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From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Answers to many of the `Re: The Requested ...' messages
Message-ID: <2923@ncoast.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Jul-87 00:11:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: ncoast.2923
Posted: Fri Jul 17 00:11:38 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jul-87 19:47:21 EDT
References: <266@brandx.rutgers.edu> <8225@utzoo.UUCP> <272@brandx.rutgers.edu> <2811@ncoast.UUCP> <1006@aramis.rutgers.edu>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh
Lines: 42

As quoted from <1006@aramis.rutgers.edu> by webber@aramis.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber):
+---------------
| the function of news.  I am particularly distressed by the posting of binaries.
| Although I can understand how for a few months after a computer comes out
| this might be the only reliable way to distribute code, non-optimizing
| C compilers for standard architectures (such as 68000s, 6502s, and 8088s)
| just aren't that hard to write.  Access to the source of compilers is not
| that difficult to come by, besides the Gnu C implementation, I have also
| seen books containing full source to P-Code pascal compilers.  While these
+---------------

Heh, heh, heh.

News for you.  The Amsterdam Compiler Kit costs $1000 plus.  Gnu C will not
run on small machines, as it's designed for VM architectures.  And, I have
*used* that P-code Pascal book (THE BYTE BOOK OF PASCAL, for those inter-
ested); if you think its execution speed is acceptable, I challenge you to
use a PD spreadsheet "compiled" under it.

"Just sit down and write a compiler"???  Look at the Minix compiler some
day (better yet, compile something with it -- bring a copy of THE LORD OF THE
RINGS with you, you'll have read it twice through before it finishes compiling
a modest-sized program; and _that's_ based on the ACK!).  Look at how long it
has taken Borland to come out with Turbo C (it's been "in progress" ever
since Turbo Pascal came out), look at how long it took Microsoft to get
their C compiler bug-free enough to be worth using.  It is NOT easy to
write compilers THAT WORK ON SMALL MACHINES.  And such compilers are rarely
cheap enough for the people who BUY small machines -- if I could afford
Microsoft C in my software budget, I could afford an Altos box in my
hardware budget.  And -- your large machines COME with C compilers.  This
is not and never willbe true of MS-DOS boxes, and probably won't be true
of OS/2 boxes if and when.

I'm sorry, but judging small computers by large-computer standards is bogus.
"Let them use sources" is rather like "Let them eat cake", and is just as
incendiary to the computer-variety peasant.
-- 
[Copyright 1987 Brandon S. Allbery, all rights reserved] \ ncoast 216 781 6201
[Redistributable only if redistribution is subsequently permitted.] \ 2400 bd.
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc and comp.binaries.ibm.pc
{{ames,harvard,mit-eddie}!necntc,{well,ihnp4}!hoptoad,cbosgd}!ncoast!allbery
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