Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!agate!ucbvax!POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Ideas for next Arp
Message-ID: <8811272334.AA11143@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 27 Nov 88 23:34:46 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 35

lpami.wimsey.bc.ca!lphillips or van-bc!lpami!lphillips (Larry Phillips) Writes:
:Manx and Lattice seem to me to be clear enough when used as adjectives
:describing two different implementations of a language in which so much
:is left to the discretion of the compiler implementation.
:
:-larry

	Such a general remark is not deserving.  Assuming you forget about
those specifics which are REQUIRED when one deals with lower levels of the
Amiga's OS, and forget about the tweeking one can do with various compiler
options, and just stick with the stuff provided by K&R and those parts of
the ANSI spec both compilers support, then they are compatible.

	You make it out like one or both have CHANGED the C language, which
isn't true at all.

	... back to those compiler options.  Since we are working with
microcomputers here there are many things we programmers must be allowed
to do to handle various situations which apply to microcomputers.  If the 
compilers did not have command line options to supply these, nobody
would buy them.

	For example, there is a clean split between those people who use
only 16 bit integers (mainly from the micro world) and those people who
use only 32 bit integers (mainly from the mini world).  There are even
people who would wish for 36+ bit integers but they make due with 32.  You
can't simply ignore half the crowd, now can you?  This doesn't apply to
larger computers because they have predetermined a lot of what we would
consider options on micros.

	Even so .. have you really looked at your UNIX compiler / linker
recently?  They've got equally incompatible options and extensions, though
very few people use them.

					-Matt