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From: ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: What is Objective C?
Message-ID: <11241@alice.UUCP>
Date: 26 Aug 90 14:29:56 GMT
References: <3864@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <2700002@hpspkla.spk.hp.com> <28470@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner NJ
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In article <28470@nigel.ee.udel.edu>, carroll@udel.edu (Mark Carroll <MC>) writes:

> The only distinction between a "true" compiler, and a "preprocessor"
> is that the preprocessor is using a familiar HLL as its intermediate
> representation.

That depends on your definition, I suppose.

To me, the word `preprocessor' usually carries the connotation of a
program whose output will mostly be the same as its input, except
for specific chunks of the input that the program transforms.

By this definition, the C preprocessor is surely a preprocessor.
So is m4 and sed.  I'm not aware of any C++ implementation that
meets this definition of preprocessor, and doubt it's possible:
implementing C++ requires a complete analysis of the input.
-- 
				--Andrew Koenig
				  ark@europa.att.com