Re: [TUHS] Resurrecting the B (which came before C) programming language

I was amused this morning to see a post on the tack-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net mailing list (TACK = The Amsterdam Compiler Kit) today from David Given, who writes: >> ... >> ... I took some time off from thinking about register allocation (ugh) >> and ported the ABC B compiler to the ACK. It's now integrated into the >> system and everything. >> >> B is Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie's untyped programming language >> which later acquired types and turned into K&R C. Everything's a machine >> word, and pointers are *word* address, not byte addresses. >> >> The port's a bit clunky and doesn't generate good code, but it works and >> it passes its own tests. It runs on all supported backends. There's not >> much standard library, though. >> >> Example: >> >> https://github.com/davidgiven/ack/blob/default/examples/hilo.b >> >> (Also, in the process it found lots of bugs in the PowerPC mcg backend, >> now fixed, as well as several subtle bugs in the PowerPC ncg backend; so >> that's good. I'm pretty sure that this is the only B compiler for the >> PowerPC in existence.) >> ...