Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!garnett
From: garnett@cs.utexas.edu (John William Garnett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: BASIC for NeXT? (was Re: NeXT,Mac,NFS)
Keywords: BASIC Pascal C Why?
Message-ID: <60@lion.cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 16 Nov 90 07:21:32 GMT
References: <1990Nov13.054856.2988@utstat.uucp> <11220@milton.u.washington.edu> <1990Nov16.061450.6894@engin.umich.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: UT at Austin, Dept. of CS
Lines: 32

In article <1990Nov16.061450.6894@engin.umich.edu> cerberus@caen.engin.umich.edu (R Eric Bennett) writes:
>In article <11220@milton.u.washington.edu> cyliao@hardy.acs.washington.edu (Chun-Yao Liao) writes:
>>In article <1990Nov13.054856.2988@utstat.uucp> philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) writes:
>>>By the way: Is there a Basic for the NeXT?
>>Sort of.  There is a BASIC that comes a s an example of p2c translator.
>>I guess it was a BASIC system written in pascal. The p2c translate the
>>pascal source to C and compile it with cc.  Anyway, I didn't do any 
>
>The only problem I have with this is why would you want to translate?
>If you are going to translate BASIC to Pascal and then to C, you kind of miss
>the point of BASIC anyway (or one of the main points).  BASIC is interepreted
>(usually).  No compile time. And you know where your errors are with your
>code because it hangs at a specific, and known, line.  Translating to Pascal
>preserves none of this.



No one ever said the Pascal program translated BASIC into Pascal.  I suspect
that the Pascal program in question is a BASIC interpreter.  If this is the
case, then the translated C version of the Pascal program would also be a
BASIC interpreter.  In either case, I doubt that the BASIC is being translated
into Pascal and then into C before being compiled and run.  However, I could
be incorrect.  Does anyone have instructions for obtaining a copy of this program
so that one can see for oneself :-)?



-- 
John Garnett
                              University of Texas at Austin
garnett@cs.utexas.edu         Department of Computer Science
                              Austin, Texas