Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!overload!dillon
From: dillon@overload.UUCP (Matthew Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re:  DICE
Message-ID: <dillon.4252@overload.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jun 90 17:12:09 GMT
References: <9005290344.AA10362@thunder.LakeheadU.Ca> <MWM.90Jun1135302@raven.pa.dec.com> <dillon.4156@overload.UUCP> <3877@moondance.cs.uq.oz.au>
Lines: 54

>What price range will the commercial version be? Do you have any idea about
>release dates? I need a *real* C compiler and I can't afford Lattice or Manx.

    I figure on the order of $150.  The shareware version is $40, and I will
    offer an upgrade path from shareware->commercial for people who send in
    their $40 (i.e. $150-$40 = $110).  THIS IS A GUESS.  I have not decided
    yet.

    The commercial version will not be ready for 3 to 6 months, the main
    thing being bitfields.  I've already got floating point working using
    the amiga libraires but fp will not be in the shareware version.  I
    also need to do a lot of general fixing up & enhancement (like 020
    instruction support), and fix any unimplemented items in the
    preprocessor (such as token pasting: ##), and generally make sure it
    compiles all my stuff as well as as much of GNU as I can get my hands
    on (GNU code is a good test).

    I expect to support the commercial and shareware versions on a parallel
    line and for shareware versions to come out more frequently.

    So far, there have been several bugs reported having to do with name
    space problems (e.g. an enum constant used as a structure or enum
    identifier, or a goto label id also used as a variable id), one in the
    preprocessor:

	"abcd\
	efgh"

    (Though frankly people ought to use the ANSI "abcd" "efgh" constructor.
    The bug in the above is that DCPP currently includes the newline as part
    of the string which is wrong)

    One problem with the front-end: DCC aparently does not work well with
    ARP or WShell due to scanning the resident list itself for efficiency.
    The new DCC frontend will have a -f switch where it uses Execute()
    normally and, given -f, scans the resident list itself.

    There have been a few reported problems with the code generator
    producing incorrect code such as 'lea D0,A3' or similar code... I
    expected these to come up.	All and all the problems are caught by
    either DC1 or DAS and do not make it through unnoticed.

>	Thanks,
>
>	Bill Segall		email: baggins@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au
>				Ph: (07) 377 2956

				    -Matt


    Matthew Dillon	    uunet.uu.net!overload!dillon
    891 Regal Rd.
    Berkeley, Ca. 94708
    USA