At 10:43 AM 21-09-98 -0400, CLASSICCMP_at_timaxp.trailing-edge.com wrote:
>Someone wrote:
>
>>> Java is the closest thing we've got today to an architecture-neutral
>>> executable environment.
>
>Except for the fact that it pretty much requires that IEEE floating point be
>used. Yes, Virginia, there are lots of machines out there that don't
>do IEEE math! And there are many good reasons to *not* use IEEE floating
>point.
>
>William Donzelli pointed out:
>> C is well established, Java is not.
Well, if you want to do something reasonably portable (I was about to write
portable, but someone will provide a nice counter example :-) you could
write it in a language that has a compiler written in itself that generates
pseudo-code. Two examples come to mind, Pascal and BCPL (me, I prefer the
latter, but what the heck).
You then write an interpreter for the pseudo-code in anything handy (the
BCPL one I have is written in c, but it's about a day's work to rewrite in
some other high level language. Took about 2 weeks way back when to write
macros to convert intcode (the BCPL pseudo-code) to 8080 assembler, and
then about a week to assemble a simple program on my Northstar :-)). Then
you have a relatively portable environment that you can take with you
wherever you go. I have versions of the BCPL compiler running on VMS,
Digital Unix, Linux and NT. My one major BCPL program works in all these
environments (it's my basic test of correctness other than the compiler
itself).
Further info at
http://www.idiom.com/free-compilers/LANG/BCPL-1.html
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies_at_latrobe.edu.au
Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479
1999
La Trobe University | "If God had wanted soccer played in the
Melbourne Australia 3083 | air, the sky would be painted green"
Received on Mon Sep 21 1998 - 19:10:53 BST