🚀 go-pugleaf

> > [...]                 Like, the fact that C can run at all in such a minimal
> > implementation has proven to be one of it's strengths. How many PD Fortran
> > compilers are there?

> I've heard this old saw for years now.  But, strangely, not often from
> a compiler writer (and, on such rare occasions, said compiler can't
> supply any specifics).

Well, I took my compiler construction course from the man who wrote the UNIX
fortran-77 compiler. He spent some time discussing the drawbacks of
Fortran to a compiler writer. I subsequently spent many pleasurable hours
playing with a public domain C compiler. I have never seen a public domain
Fortran compiler.

If Fortran is so easy, where are the compilers for PCs? There are several
times as many C compilers available.

C is not just a "little" easier to parse, it's a LOT easier to parse. And
if you're just going to do a dumb code-generator the parser and symbol
table are about the only things to worry about.

You also brushed aside lots of problems with the Fortran compiler. How
about equivalences? How about commons? How about compiling the good old
FORMAT statement (you can't just push it off to a subroutine, because you
need to have smarts in there to handle stuff like "WRITE (6,*) ...")? How
do you *prevent* arrays from being aliased (answer, you don't... not for a
dumb compiler)? How about ...

Fortran's completely ad-hoc nature really doesn't make it much fun.

Tell you what... you write a PD Fortran compiler and we can compare it
in complexity with a PD C compiler and see who wins.
-- 
 _--_|\  `-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.uu.net>.
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