27 Sep
2005
27 Sep
'05
1:45 p.m.
B! I would like to have a look at that - that, and NB.
Does anyone know if they're still extant, or their documentation at the very
least? (I've seen BCPL, and read some of its documentation, but it's still a
hop-skip-and-a-jump away from C. Some BCPL things do seem a little bit
strange to a C user ... ;)
Wesley Parish
On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 10:04, Warren Toomey wrote:
On Mon, Sep 26, 2005 at 03:28:33PM -0400, Bill
Cunningham wrote:
--
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-----
Mau e ki, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, what is the most important thing?
Maku e ki, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, it is people, it is people, it is people.
In some of the eary versions of unix if
I'm correct you had to
generate the C compiler. Now how was that done? Was the compiler written
in assembly and the assembler generated crt0 crt1 and so on?
If you had a distribution tape, then it came with C compiler binaries and
source. You used the compiler binaries to rebuild the compiler.
Obviously, to get to that point was a bit harder.
A good reference to this is "The Development of the C Language" by
Dennis Ritchie, available at
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html
A quick read seems to indicate that Ken created a language called B which
was patterned on BCPL, with a compiler initially in assembly language. Then
Ken rewrote the B compiler in B and bootstrapped it using the existing
compiler. Then Dennis extended the B language to become NB, which then
evolved to become C.
Along the way, new language features were added in to the compiler,
but the features couldn't be used _in_ the compiler until they worked.
As noted on this page,
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/primevalC.html, Dennis says "Evolving
compilers written in their own language are careful not to take advantage
of their own latest features."
Cheers,
Warren
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