Re: C++ bashing (was Re: Vendor bashing? Sort of.)

[merlin@annwfn.com (Fred McCall)]

In <35nlhb$6u0@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> dewar@cs.nyu.edu Robert Dewar writes:

>
>I would not quite put C-Front in the same category as GNAT. The big difference
>is whether you are generating source code as an intermediate step. The
>wword preprocessor is normally reserved for translator systems that do
>generate intermediate source. In no sense whatever does GNAT generate C,
>it links directly to the GCC backend, and by no stretch of the imagination
>can GNAT be called a preprocessor (if GNAT is a preprocessor, so are all
>the front ends of GCC, including C itself).

Well, that *does* make C a 'preprocessor', since most C compilers can be
made to generate assembly (and the first ones did indeed work this
way).  And if C is a 'preprocessor', then GNAT (and C-Front) must be
PRE-preprocessors!

>
>Now of course ideally, if the intermediate source code is 100% hidden from
>the user, then it is not so important a distinction, however, it can
>certainly effect efficiency (there is no efficient way of handling Ada OR
>C++ exceptions if you have to generate C source code).

Sure there is.  You stuff it into a link library and don't generate code
for anything but the library call (which, I believe, is exactly the way
a number of things are done with C-Front -- which is why it's as
incorrect to call it a 'preprocessor' as it is to call any other
compiler one).



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merlin@annwfn.com -- I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.