Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU!martens
From: martens@CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Jeff Martens)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Draco
Message-ID: <8912020143.AA10404@dinghy.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 2 Dec 89 01:43:53 GMT
Sender: martens@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Lines: 42

In article <0847.AA0847@ami-cg> Chris Gray (mail to whom bounces) writes:

>The answer of course is that you shouldn't BUY any compiler; you should just
>trot on down to your nearest Amiga user's group (or decent software store) and
>pick up copies of Fish Disks #76, 77 and 201. (Should be available for the
>cost of the disks + copying.) They will provide you with a full distribution
>of my Draco compiler/system for the Amiga. Code compiled with the compiler on
>Fish #201 will execute almost as fast (with 10% in most cases, I'd say) as
>that generated by any of the commercial compilers. The language also provides
>strong type checking, which can be an immense boon to someone just starting
>out with Amiga programming, something which C and Fortran don't do. All of
>the languages (except, likely, Fortran) provide essentially the same features,
>so graphics programming will be much the same in any of them. I've done a
>number of graphics programs in Draco, and I've seen others done by happy
>users elsewhere.

>Given the price, (free), its a good way to find out if your really do want
>to get into this Amiga programing stuff!

>P.S. There will be a third version of the compiler coming out in the future,
>as soon as I finish with Amiga Empire V2.0 . So far I've added global register
>variables (real useful for shared libraries) and data initializations like
>those in C.

>Chris Gray    usenet: {uunet,alberta}!myrias!ami-cg!cg	  CIS: 74007,1165

It seems that I've heard of Draco somewhere along the way, but really
know nothing about it.  So, for people in my situation -- ignorant of
Draco, spiteful of C, and too cheap to buy a Modula-2 compiler --
maybe you could post a quick description of Draco.  

Also, you suggested that we pick up 3 Fish disks.  Am I correct in
guessing that really FF201 is enough?  Or would I really want all
three?  Thanks.

Does Draco per chance run on a Sun 3 Berkeley Unix system?  In the
best of possible worlds, I'd just be using one language.

-- Jeff (martens@cis.ohio-state.edu)

With the 11/89 issue, the Communications of the ACM has finally become
100% devoid of computer science.