🚀 go-pugleaf

Kevin Brown (kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com) wrote:
: This is precisely why they should have recoded the OS *early*...so
: there would be less of an OS to recode.  Or they might have used
: high-level coding techniques with hand-translation to low-level code ...

Be careful here, this approach can lead to low performance amateur-ish
assembly language code. The big performance gains are not attained by 
out-translating the compiler, they are attained by approaching a problem 
differently and by using information a compiler doesn't have.

: ... so that when it finally came time to code the entire thing in a
: high-level language all the work would have been done.
:
: In other words, they didn't have to use assembly hacker techniques.
: :-)

The Mac is (or was, depending on your opinion of CMT) a single-user,
single-tasking machine. The high level vs. knowledgable assembly language
approach could lead to a noticable performance penalty. Not a good thing
in the commercial marketplace. In contrast, the multi-user nature of UNIX
makes high-level vs. ASM a less noticable factor than say the number of
users currently on the machine. Basically Apple developers had a good
reason to use assembly, UNIX developers did not. I will agree that Apple
should have started a Gershwin-like project, to work behind the scenes, at
a much earlier date than they did. 

: I doubt anyone would attempt to argue that MS's programmers were as
: good as Apple's...:-)

Anybody, talented or not, can program the capable and friendly 68000; but 
it takes a truly gifted person to make the 8086 do what you want. ;-)

Tony
-- 
------------------
Tony Tribelli
adtribelli@acm.org