🚀 go-pugleaf

I posted a request for information about Modula-2 compilers for the Sun 3.
Here are the requirements I specified:

> It must:
>	- generate native code
>	- be stable (not being beta-tested on paying customers)
>	- be good at supporting low-level gunge (inc. cross-calling to
>		assembler and C)
>	- have good and well-documented libraries
>	- specify its semantics a LOT better than Wirth's manuals do.

> Price is not particularly important, quality IS. The last ounce of
> efficiency in code generation is nowhere near as important as the
> absence of semantic boobytraps.

I have had four suggestions so far, two from the net:

	* One person liked Sun's own compiler a LOT, saying their support was
	  excellent, it was a mature and pretty bugfree product, it did
	  cross-calling, had fantastic libraries, had a makefile generator,
	  and had built-in dbxtool support. It has extensions beyond Wirth,
	  which can safely be ignored. The person who wrote it is now at
	  Oregon Software (see below).

	* Albert Meier recommended a German compiler that seems to have
	  vanished from the marketplace:

	> Yes such a compiler exists. It is called MOCKA and was developed by
	> Franz Engelmann at GMD. GMD started marketing at a very low level and
	> sold the whole know-how (including Franz Engelmann, who is member of
	> the ISO Modula-2 working group) to another company in Germany.

	[note on why you can't get it now...]

	> Compared to the Sun M2 compiler from Sun themselves MOCKA is/was
	> about 3-4 times faster compiling and about 30% in execution time. The
	> comparison was made in December 1987. The look and feel is also much
	> better. Let's hope that MOCKA still will come.

	> aplusl@ifi.ethz.(ch/UUCP), ...mcvax!cernvax!ethz!aplusl

I also got two replies by paper mail from companies that monitor this
newsgroup. Both of them claim very high conformity to standards (they are both
involved in ISO standardization committees), well-optimized native code
generation including 68881 support, cross-calling to C and assembler, and make
facilities. Both are available for other processors and operating systems.
ACE claims to have very thorough documentation and includes library sources;
Oregon to have a nice debugger and source code version control.

	* ACE Associated Computer Experts bv
	  Van Eeghestraat 100, 1071 GL Amsterdam, Netherlands, +31 20 646416
	  They took the trouble to send me a personal reply, written by someone
	  who understood what I was talking about.

	* Oregon Software
	  6915 SW Macadam Avenue, Portland, OR 97219-2397, USA, 910 464 4779
	  Their system is not yet released (due August 1988). But it shares
	  many components with their existing Pascal/2 system, so it isn't
	  likely to be vapourware. They contacted me by phone; again, the
	  sales person knew his stuff. (But whoever monitors the net doesn't
	  get the details through to the sales people in one piece!)

We haven't made a decision yet (even on whether we want to use Modula at all).
ACE and Oregon both look very attractive, maybe with ACE having the edge. (It
looks from ACE's description that their compiler and UKC's `ups', the best
debugger on the planet, could be made to interwork with a bit of hacking.
If someone were to make that happen I might even try to *like* Modula).

Comments?

One point that mystified me is why Modula should need special make and version
control gubbins, as Sun, ACE and Oregon all provide. Why can't the general
purpose ones - SCCS, nmake, and friends - hack it?


-- 
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Mail: Jack Campin, Computing Science Dept., Glasgow Univ., 17 Lilybank Gardens,
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