Language standards vs. implementation, was Re: A right alternative to IEEE-754's format

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In article <pag2qg$lq4$1@gioia.aioe.org>,
Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> wrote:
>On 2018-04-09 7:48 AM, David Brown wrote:
>
>>> GCC tools are for the most part using old compiler technology.
>>> Some of is decades old.
>>
>> You are fond of saying that, but I don't remember hearing any
>> details or examples.
>
>- Strategy passes to determine how an applications should be compiled
>this time.


Yes. Yuck. It's a nightmare for debugging, and makes it damn-near
impossible to tune code that is going to be run by someone else.


>- Direct compiling to machine code and not using intermediate assembler
>to get away from the two copy problem with code generation ISA restrictions.


Well, er, yes, in theory. But suitable intermediate non-text languages
(assembler is, I agree, outdated) are a vast simplification of compilers
that are designed for multiple source languages and multiple target
machines. gcc is one such.


>- Whole application building. Why is linking still being done when its
>purpose was to get around computer limitations?


No, it wasn't. That was ONE purpose. A far more important one was to
allow and support separate compilation, as needed when an application
uses a library built by someone else. And how many large and serious
programs DON'T do that?




Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

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