16 Jun
2020
16 Jun
'20
3:36 a.m.
I had forgotten about that tool, along with many others. "Comp" sounds
plausible but as I said, I forget. (Not a sign of age; my memory for
details is no match for Clem's; to me stage actors are superheroes).
I do remember the tool existing, though, and now see it as related to a
long list of similar things, including "go generate". I wonder if my
subconscious held on to it.
This history stuff is fun because of the reminder of a time when tools were
simple and you could create a whole new one in an afternoon.
-rob
On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 6:26 AM Norman Wilson <norman(a)oclsc.org> wrote:
Rob Pike:
Yeah, p is all we need. I think it originated with td at UofT. I might
have
brought it with me to Bell Labs, or recreated it. Probably the former.
====
The former, I think. The source code in V10 is very similar
to that you left behind at Caltech (where I first encountered
p). Most differences have to do with using opendir and readdir
rather than reading raw directories in the SPname code.
A further clue is that, even in V10, p.c begins
/*%cc p.c pad.o spname.o
*/
The tool that looked for such lines to tell it how to compile
things (I forget its name; was it comp?) doesn't seem to have
survived in the archival backup I have from Caltech HEP, but
I'm quite sure it came from U of T as well.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON