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From: webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups
Subject: Making binary groups obsolete (was Re:Are binary groups necessary?)
Message-ID: <303@brandx.rutgers.edu>
Date: Thu, 23-Jul-87 15:49:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: brandx.303
Posted: Thu Jul 23 15:49:58 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 07:52:48 EDT
References: <266@brandx.rutgers.edu> <8225@utzoo.UUCP> <272@brandx.rutgers.edu> <153@hobbes.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 119
Summary: an offer
Xref: mnetor news.admin:724 news.groups:1269
To: webber@aramis.rutgers.edu, uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!root@seismo.css.gov


In article <153@hobbes.UUCP>, root@hobbes.UUCP (John Plocher) writes:
> [
>  Instead of this META DISCUSSION why don't YOU use this front end and write one?
>  YOU, Bob Webber.  Not someone else. 
> 
> 	Put up, shut up, or DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE about it!
> 

Well, I never meta discussion I didn't like.  And if I did everything 
that I said was easy, then I would have no time to do things that are 
actually difficult (of course, there is always time for the impossible). 
I maintain that writing a simple C compiler for a standard micro is easy 
and I will make you the following counter offer:

      Most people distribute public domain code from a wish to
      share with a community of likeminded people.  I have no
      wish to share with a group of people too lazy to write a
      simple C compiler, so clearly you can't expect me to do
      it for this reason.

      You have elsewhere said that people on the net get things
      done the way they want because they have donated to the 
      net software and administrative effort.  I disagree and
      further maintain that if I did something for the net
      there would be no expectation that things would start working
      in a manner I think is more reasonable.  Although everyone
      on the net maintains they are doing what is `right,' there
      is too much descrepancy between my notions of `right' and
      the behavior I have observed by the `backbone' and `moderators.'
      Thus, I am not willing to rely on their `good faith,' but I
      will enter into some variation on the following agreement
      if anyone is interested.   The details to be negotiated in 
      news.admin, but the basic thrust to be:

           1) I will begin work on a public domain portable C
              compiler (to be described below).

           2) A moderated group called comp.pd.compilers will be 
              created for purposes of progress reports on this and 
              similar future projects, bug reports, and compiler releases.
              [Moderator to be agreed upon; I mention moderation not
              because I think it is necessary to the project, but rather
              because I think it would be necessary in order to get
              the agreement mentioned below.]

           3) Upon completion (to be specificed later, but to include
              self-compilation) of said compiler and port to some
              808x machine (to be specified later, I assume what is
              wanted is some IBM PC), two other unmoderated groups will
              be created, comp.pd.discussion and comp.pd.sources
              for purposes of unmoderated discussion of public domain
              source-related issues and unmoderated posting of public
              domain sources.  The complete compiler source will be 
              placed in the public domain.

           4) Enforcement:  (On the net, the only thing that binds
              people is public opinion and a personal sense of responsibilty,
              so the following has been designed to maximally invoke such.)
                 a) A posting of the general agreement and people
                    agreeing to it  will be made on news.announce.important 
                    (this is at least as important as other recent 
                    announcements there).
                 b) A posting of the general agreement and list of people
                    who originally agreed and a list of those who have
                    since reneged will be posted on news.announce.newusers
                    monthly.
                 c) The initial list of people agreeing must include
                    each member of the current quasi-net-government,
                    i.e., the members of the backbone and moderators.
                 d) Specifically, the backbone administrators are agreeing
                    to carry the above mentioned comp.pd.* groups as long
                    as they carry any moderated sources or binaries groups.
                 e) Specifically, the moderators are agreeing that if they
                    are moderating a group that carries sources or binaries
                    and if the public domain C compiler gets ported to any
                    of the machines of interest to their readers, then they
                    will monthly announce the existance of the compiler and
                    references on where more information can be obtained.
                 f) New moderators and backbone sites will be expected
                    to enter into this agreement before assuming said status.
                    Failure to do so will automatically place them on the list
                    of people reneging on the agreement.
           5) Definitions:
                 a) Moderation means any time when someone other than
                    the poster must look at a message in order for it
                    to be distributed across the usenet machines that 
                    carry the group to which it is being posted.
                 b) A `simple portable C compiler' means the following.
                    It compiles the basic C language as first described
                    in Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language
                    (Prentice Hall, 1978) with later clarifications in
                    Harbison and Steele's C: A Reference Manual. Where
                    Harbison and Steele describe alternate interpretations,
                    I will be free to pick the one I like.  Where Harbison
                    and Steele describe extensions not present in the 
                    original 1978 description, I will be free to ignore 
                    these extensions (e.g., I wouldn't waste time on
                    implementing enumerated types).  Also, library routines
                    are not part of the C language (quote pp 143 of K&R:
                    ``Input and output facilities are not part of the C
                    language''), so for the most part, I will leave libraries
                    to people more intimately familiar with specific target
                    machines and only supply with the compiler what I view
                    as a minimal set.  The general strategy will be to
                    use an intermediate language similar to INTCODE
                    and OCODE (described in BCPL: The Language and Its
                    Compiler, Richards and Whitby-Strevens, Cambridge Press,
                    1982 and Richards, The portabilty of the BCPL compiler,
                    Software Practice and Experience 1, 2 (1971)).  The
                    compiler will be written in two parts: 1) to translate C 
                    into the intermediate language and 2) an assembler/loader 
                    will be written to combine files in the intermediate 
                    language into executables for the target machine.

So, the bottom line is I will trade you a compiler for a set of groups
that will hopefully obsolete the binary groups.  WHAT DO YOU SAY????


------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber)