Newsgroups: comp.arch Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Software Distribution Message-ID: <1988Aug19.175624.19835@utzoo.uucp> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology References: <891@taux01.UUCP> Date: Fri, 19 Aug 88 17:56:24 GMT In article <891@taux01.UUCP> chaim@taux01.UUCP (Chaim Bendelac) writes: >... Imagine an Intermediate Program >Representation Standard (IPRS) along the lines of an intermediate language >within a compiler. Language independent, architecture independent. >The distributor compiles and optimizes his program with his favorite >language compiler into its IPR, copies the IPR onto a tape and sells. >The buyer uses a variation on 'tar' to unload the tape and to post-process >the IPR program with the system-supplied architecture-optimized IPRS-to-binary >compiler backend. The one problem I can think of is that it's tricky to build such a representation in which the front end doesn't need to know *anything* about the machine. Things like data-type sizes often have to be decided before the intermediate representation is generated, even if the details of the code generation get deferred. Perhaps not impossible, but tricky. -- Intel CPUs are not defective, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology they just act that way. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu